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Partly Cloudy Kids usher in giving season at Meadow
In the true spirit of giving during the holidays, students at Meadow Elementary School in Baldwin have collected enough items to fill several shopping carts, boxes and bags to help restock a local food pantry.
More than five shopping carts, dozens of bags and boxes of nonperishable items were collected for families in need last month. As a way to express how thankful they are to be able to give back, students donated dozens of food items and toiletries to the food pantry run by St. Christopher’s Church in Baldwin. The school’s student council organized the charitable event, and $160 was also donated to the church.
“We’ve always done this in the past, helping St. Christopher’s,” Yolanda Martin, principal of Meadow Elementary School, said.
Michael Almodovar, the student council president, said the group targeted St. Christopher’s for donations because the church is in the Baldwin community, and “the donations are given to people who are in need.”
According to Martin, students from each grade in the school were responsible for collecting different items to donate.
Julian Desravines, vice-president of the student council, said that some of the donated items included “jelly, soup, little snacks, peanut butter.” He explained that the school’s kindergartners were responsible for collecting rice and stuffing; first-graders, for wipes, stuffing and mayonnaise; second-graders, for toilet paper and coffee; third-graders, for paper towels, baby formula, baby food and spaghetti sauce; fourth-graders, for crackers and soap; and fifth-graders were responsible for collecting peanut butter, jelly and other small snacks.
“St. Christopher basically surveys what families need around this time of year and what families have been coming to the pantry for, and that’s how we were able to solidify the donations,” Martin said.
All Meadow students, their parents and faculty participated in this year’s drive.
“I think it’s important for people to start giving back at a young age so that people can learn core values in life,” Amanzeb Amin, treasurer of the student council, said. “It’s not always receiving, but it’s giving.”
Julian said that the reaction from the community was “really good,” with plenty of positive feedback. He said that the school community felt good about this drive because a lot of food was collected for the church.
“My favorite part about this food drive was to give back,” Dominic Fortune, student council secretary, said.
Michael said that it was fun watching all of the food and toiletries being loaded into trucks, for delivery to St. Christopher’s. Julian added that he also was excited to see all of the donated food items.
“It made me feel warm inside to give back to my community,” Julian said. “So to me, I feel like I did something important, and it made me feel accomplished.”
Julian noted that the school is planning to host a Super Bowl food drive, during which the school will collect cans of soup. He said that the school would continue to host food drives because “it helps the community.”
