Edgewood Middle School Collects Food For The Needy
Edgewood Middle School Collects Food For The Needy
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Staff Report-
Edgewood Middle School Collects Food For The NeedyEdgewood Middle School held its annual food drive Dec. 2-16, collecting hundreds and hundreds of boxes of food items, gallons of milk, loaves of bread, pounds of meat and potatoes.
Students and teachers brought in items theyed collect from their homes and by soliciting items from customers at Owen’s Supermarket. They focused on items that were kid-friendly, such as mac and cheese, ramen noodles, cereal, etc., according to business and hope teacher Tammy Adamiec.
“So when the kids are home over the two-week break, they can easily prepare themselves and siblings’ food,” she said in an email.
It is ran as a contest between the school resource time (SRT) classes at Edgewood. Each SRT is given a goal based on how many students are in the class. If all SRT classes meet their goal, there is a schoolwide party on the last day of school before break.
The top three SRTs who brought in the most points (items are assigned a point value based on value and demand/need of that item) earn prizes. First place gets a pizza party, second gets ice cream sundaes and third gets cupcakes or cookies.
“We all made our goal, so we will have a party on Friday. The winning SRT was Mr. Netzley’s SRT, with Mr. Ringler earning second, and Ms. Nelson third,” Adamiec said.
When Edgewood started collecting items at the local grocery stores years ago, three stores allowed the school to do it. They were Marsh, and both Owen’s stores. This year, Edgewood was down to just the Owen’s on East Center Street that allowed students to collect items at their store.
“We were very concerned about how many items we would collect. We optimistically set our school goal at 19,000 items, which is what we collected last year. We collected 18,850 items! We were ecstatic and surprised! We are so grateful that Owen’s allows us to use their store, and that their customers are so generous and patient with our students,” Adamiec said.
This year Edgewood did something different to help compensate for the loss of the other Owen’s store. It had a Hacienda Give Back day to raise money to buy items it may be short. The school primarily focused on selling gift cards for this. The SRTs were put into teams, and the team that sold the most gift cards earned lunch out at Hacienda on Friday, with Mr. Cook and Mrs. Sederholm’s classes the big winners. The money was used to purchase items needed to complete the family boxes.
Edgewood also partnered up with Leaders Staffing to adopt an Edgewood family to help them with Christmas gifts.
This is how the food drive impacts the community and the school:
? 58 family boxes go to Warsaw Community Schools families in need. These include everything from potatoes to toilet paper and toothbrushes to milk and meat. Enough items are provided to get them through the two-week winter break. These included a total of 174 boxes full of items, 116 gallons of milk, 116 loaves of bread, 232 pounds of hamburger and 580 pounds of potatoes.
? Monetary donations of $500 each given to Combined Community Services and Our Father’s House.
? Edgewood collected nearly 19,000 items this year. What remains, after it makes family boxes is donated to CCS and Our Father’s House to restock their shelves. This is thousands of items, Adamiec said.
? Edgewood collected over 85,000 items and a few thousand dollars over the past five years for local food banks and area families in need.
? Many of the students are able to work on their social and public speaking skills by soliciting donations from neighbors and at Owen’s.
? Many of the students build self-confidence and goodwill by helping with the food drive in some way. They learn that giving their time and sweat is just as valuable as buying items to donate, Adamiec said.
? Teachers get to build relationships with students outside of their classrooms, and see a different side of these students by volunteering to accompany students to grocery stores to solicit donations.
Those helping make this year’s event a success included Owen’s Supermarkets, Meijer, Kerlin Bus Sales, Hacienda, Leaders Staffing, Edgewood PPE, students and staff, Warsaw area residents, several area businesses for donating prizes for students and WCS employees for participating in the Hacienda gift card sales.
