Thursday, October 1, 2026
The students at Barnum Woods Elementary School prepared an enormous donation of 1,019 boxes of cereal for the people of East Meadow and beyond. To celebrate the achievement, students set up a proper Barnum Woods send-off: setting up all of the boxes into an enormous domino display that, when toppled, sent ripples throughout the school’s longest hallways.
That domino display was how the second annual Barnum Woods Cereal Challenge ended on Feb. 12. The event was created by the East Meadow Kiwanis Club, a local division of the international nonprofit, which focuses on supporting educations and developing the civic leadership skills of young people.
The K-Kids are one of the Kiwanis Club divisions designed for young people, in this case, elementary schoolers. K-Kids is led by Co-Presidents Stella Beck and Sky Brozgis, a pair of 10-year-olds. Beck detailed how the K-Kids worked on the event.
“We had a meeting with the principal (about) a lot of stuff — when we would knock down the cereal boxes and where everything would go,” she said. “We also had to decide how many we wanted to get and where to put everything, and we had to count them and where to donate them.”
In total, the students’ haul of donations exceeded last year’s total of 954 boxes and this year’s goal of 1,000 boxes — an effort rewarded with a visit from the school’s mascot, the Barnum Bobcat, on the day of the celebration.
The motive of the drive is to feed local community members in need.
Throughout the cereal challenge, volunteers from the high school Key Club and the adult Kiwanis Club helped make the event possible — as well as their classmates. Throughout the food drive, Barnum Woods’ student-led press team, Jacob Durso, 10, Michael Simmons, 9, helped motivate their classmates to give. The duo created podcasts and read aloud school announcements each day, gaining experience with public speaking and motivating their peers to support the effort.
The proceeds from the challenge go to several recipients: Long Island Cares picked up 600 boxes of cereal on Feb. 13, and with the remainder going towards the Veterans Food Pantry at the Nassau University Medical Center, as well as the local parishes St. Martha’s, St. Raphael’s and St. Bridgette’s.
Brozgis welcomed the hundreds of her classmates who joined her in the halls to view the domino display.
“In the past month, as Barnum Woods focused on making ‘pawsitive’ choices, preparing to focus on the character trait of caring, we all helped spread care by collecting cereal boxes for those who need it,” she said.
The class who brought in the most donations was led by Danielle Curcio’s 5th grade class, with 67 boxes. The winning class receives four prizes: free homework passes, extended recess, an in-school field trip to the recycling club’s Caine’s Arcade, and a pajama and snack party sponsored by School Principal Amanda Sagnelli.
Kiwanis Club Past President Melody Schiller also serves as a K-Kids advisor, guiding the students towards their goals while reinforcing the intended learning outcome of the exercise.
“This is such a huge event that is very memorable and fun for kids,” she said. “It really sticks in their heads when they’re thinking about their everyday choices… they’re able to go back to this wonderful memory and build on it and make kind choices every day.
“We have a lot of kids in the hospital, as well as feeding a lot of hungry families,” Schiller added. “When the kids see a need, they want to fill it.”
Kiwanis Club President Donna Goldstein, through the Kiwanis Club, donated 100 cereal boxes to the K-Kids.
“We are so proud of them,” she said. “We gave them a challenge, and they rose to the occasion, and they’re really becoming great future leaders.”
