St. Bonaventure University

They are the gifts who keep on giving.

For the 43^rd consecutive year, students from St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute delivered a truckload of nonperishable food items and paper products Friday to the Warming House, St. Bonaventure University’s soup kitchen on North Union Street in Olean.

This year was the 54^th anniversary of the St. Joe’s Food Basket. The Warming House, which started receiving donations from St. Joe’s in 1982, is the primary beneficiary of the Buffalo high school’s annual food drive.

This annual Christmastime donation is the largest donation of nonperishables given annually to the Warming House, which celebrated its 50^th anniversary this year.

More than two dozen young men from St. Joe’s took an hour Friday morning to unload boxes and bins containing 10,500 items. Afterward, they were treated to lunch at the Warming House.

Dr. Jeff Gingerich, St. Bonaventure’s president, and his wife, Betsy, a regular volunteer at the Warming House; Dean Whitcomb, director of Undergraduate Admissions; and Dr. Dave Hilmey, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs and a 1997 St. Joe’s graduate, greeted the students on their arrival.

“The amount of work that goes into the Food Basket is amazing. I saw it firsthand when I was a student (at St. Joe’s) how much work you all do to make this happen,” Hilmey told the students. “You make the lives of so many people in Olean better.”

In 1970, St. Joe’s religion teacher Chuck Ende and a group of St. Joe’s students began collecting food donations for those in need. That first year, the collections fit in the trunk of Ende’s car. St. Joe’s history teacher Mike Stewart has been the faculty director of the student-run program for the last five years.

The Warming House is believed to be the oldest student-run soup kitchen in the nation. More than 22,000 meals were served and more than 800 people, mostly SBU students, volunteered.

“We had a chance to tour St. Joe’s last year and we were so impressed to see what goes into this effort,” Dr. Gingerich said. “The Warming House is such an important part of who we are at St. Bonaventure. If we do nothing else with our students, it’s encouraging them to serve others.”

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About the University: The nation’s first Franciscan university, St. Bonaventure University is a community committed to transforming the lives of our students inside and outside the classroom, inspiring in them a lifelong commitment to service and citizenship. Out of 167 regional universities in the North, St. Bonaventure was ranked #6 for value and #14 for innovation by U.S. News and World Report (2024).