Number of Participants: 57
Hours Donated: 2
Value of Time Served: $963
Event Type: Hunger
Sport: Schools
Date: May 13, 2019
Location:
Wading River
NY, USA
About:
Wading River School’s Character Counts committee has been organizing holiday food drives to benefit local churches, veteran groups and food pantries for numerous years. The theme of this year’s food drive was inspired by a children’s book author visit to the school, Kathryn Otoshi and her book “Beautiful Hands.”
During Otoshi’s visit, students pledged to do something beautiful with their hands. They used the pledge to encourage students to decorate a box and fill it with nonperishable food items and toiletries for the local food pantries. To build momentum and add an element of excitement to the food drive, a competition component was added. For two weeks, each grade level competed against one another to determine which one collected the most boxes of food – the fifth grade students were declared the victors. Additionally, a contest was held for the best decorated box in each grade and third grader Jasmine Macias, fourth grader Sean Logan and fifth grader Jocelyn Kavanaugh were honored for their grade-level achievement. The successful food drive culminated in donations to four local churches, each receiving approximately 36 boxes of food. “Students were so inspired by Kathryn Otoshi’s story and took to heart her motivating words of planting ideas, stretching their imaginations and reaching for dreams,” said reading teacher Kelly Toole, who works with reading teacher Tracy O’Lear, school psychologist Patricia Aretakis and math teacher Mark Vallina in guiding the positive character traits in the schools’ students. “We are so proud of their reading efforts and giving efforts.”
Photo caption: Wading River School students and staff proudly displayed their collection of food and toiletries for local churches.
Photo courtesy of the Shoreham-Wading River Central School District
