Monday, January 13, 2025
Students who attend the Chatterton School in the Merrick School District are learning the importance of giving back to others this holiday season, thanks to a food drive that will directly benefit Merrick families in need of a little extra support.
The school’s student council, comprised of fifth- and sixth-grade students, collected nonperishable food items throughout the month of November, and assembled donation boxes at the school on Nov. 21, to be distributed ahead of Thanksgiving.
Sixth-grade teachers Laura Bonet and Lindsay Zender, who lead the student council, oversaw the food packing process with members of the council. Marisa Taddeo, the school’s social worker, also helped put together the bins.
Bonet said that this year the student council was opened up to all fifth and sixth graders, assembling a massive team eager to participate in school and community service efforts. The council meets once a class cycle — about every five days — to discuss different initiatives it would like to get involved in.
“But this is traditional here, that every year we do a food drive for Thanksgiving,” Bonet said. “Our social worker gives us names of families in the neighborhood that may benefit from having some extra supplies around the holiday season.”
Information about the drive is sent to the entire school community to solicit donations, which are placed in bins in the front foyer of the school. The drive is always successful, but it was even more so this year than in the past, Zender said.
The work that the council does throughout the school year is very collaborative, because its members want to give back to others, according to the council’s president, Elise, a sixth-grade student at Chatterton.
“I’ve always loved helping people,” she said. “I went for president because I like to be a leader. I like working with other students, and I like working with them because I think it is just a fun way to help others.”
Donations were sorted into seasonally-decorated boxes in a classroom at Chatterton last week, and the food items were distributed as evenly as possible.
“We sorted all food by types of food,” Zender said. “All the pasta went on one table, all the desserts went on one table, all the vegetables went on one table, and then we went around. Every box got one of each, and then it went back around once we had extra.”
The student council asked for typical items, like canned vegetables, stuffing and soups, but added things like tea and hot chocolate onto the list this year.
The donations were anonymously dropped off to the homes of 16 families on Nov. 25, right before Thanksgiving, and each family received two full boxes of food. Leftover donations were given to the Community Cupboard, the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District’s food pantry housed at the Brookside School in North Merrick, that helps families in need year-round.
The student council does a lot of good work throughout the school year, Bonet said, adding that it was responsible for bringing back a “buddy bench” to Chatterton’s playground — a simple park bench that inspires friendship and conversation during outdoor recreation. The student council also plans to run a toy drive in December, as well as collaborate with Almost Home Animal Rescue to help rescue animals in need, sometime in the spring.
All of these projects, Bonet said, reinforce the values of the student council throughout the Chatterton school community. Because the food from the drive was going directly to Merrick families, it’s great that the students know their work is helping their immediate community, she added.
“We talk about helping the school community, the local community and then the global community,” Bonet said. “We teach them about this whole idea of service.”
