Editor’s Note: Last week, reporter David Biggy went inside Southern Regional High School for a look at its annual food drive to benefit the Atlantic City Rescue Mission. This is the first of two parts.

Granola bars galore. Hordes of canned vegetables. Towers of soups and snack foods. Cases of ramen pretty much everywhere. What had been the Southern Regional High School media center a day earlier was transformed into a mountain range of nonperishables.