A group of students are turning their routine trips to the dining hall into community service.

Mollie Schmitz (COL ’10) and Annie McBride (COL ’10) held their first Grab-n-Give run last Saturday afternoon. The food drive, which the two freshmen run with five of their friends, takes leftover Grab-n-Go meals donated by students to the District’s homeless.

This past Saturday, the seven freshman girls took a taxi to the Union Station Metro stop, intending to give the meals to homeless people there.

“It was too cold outside, so there were very few homeless people around,” McBride said.

Instead, they brought the meals to the John L. Young Homeless Shelter on D Street.

“The shelter is only a 12-hour facility, but on extremely cold days they allow the residents to stay for as long as they need,” McBride said. “But they don’t provide any food, so we were happy to help out.”

The operation began on a small scale, and its founders relied largely on word-of-mouth last week to promote their cause.

“We put some fliers around Village C and left a box outside of our room,” Schmitz said.

The group’s leaders said that they were pleased with the turnout for their first weekly event. Over 40 meals were in the box outside of their room in Village C West by Saturday morning.

But the group hopes to gradually expand. According to Schmitz, they are hoping to place collection boxes in every dorm.

“We also want to table outside of Leo’s to increase the awareness, and we are definitely going to put up flyers all around campus,” Schmitz said.

The founders of Grab-n-Give said that they did not consider asking the Marriot International, the company which provides food services on campus, to donate the leftover Grab-n-Go Meals to shelters at the end of each week.

“To be honest, I think students feel as though they have done something good by donating meals, so there is some benefit for them as well,” Schmitz said.

Several students said that they support the new organization.

“I see homeless people all the time when I walk around Georgetown, but I am often reluctant to give them money,” ike Manas (COL ’10) said. “I feel better knowing that they are getting nourishment rather than using the money to buy something that they don’t need.”

But not everyone expressed willingness to participate.

“Sometimes I get Grab-n-Gos and take them to work with me,” Grace Turke (SFS ’10) said. “I am all about feeding the homeless, but sometimes I need them for myself.”

The group’s organizers acknowledged that several aspects of the project needed improvement.

“There were a few students who left meals with no utensils and many salads with no dressing,” Schmitz said

The group hopes to eventually bring meals to several shelters and serve homeless people in various areas of the city.