Spread The Love food drive set at Verner Elementary in Verona
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The students at Verner Elementary in Verona are lending a helping hand to the community by sponsoring their fourth annual Spread The Love food drive.
Taking place Feb. 7-11 and coordinated by the student council, students of every grade will be encouraged to bring in a nonperishable food item. The food will be donated to the United Methodist Church in Verona, where it will be distributed to those in need.
Donations from the general public tend to slow down after the holiday season, so the students have timed their food drive out to coincide with an overall need for supplies at the food pantry during the winter months. The students at Verner have formulated a very specific plan to help bridge that gap.
It starts with creating handmade flyers for the kids to take home and posters that hung around the school in order to spread the word among the student population. Then during the week of the food drive, student council members stand at both sides of the building when school starts at 8:15 a.m. and collect the donations into wagons. Seeing the volunteers right at the door each morning also helps to remind the students all week to bring in their nonperishable items.
After the collection week, the students all pitch in to organize the food by types, after which it is placed on shelves in the school near the main office. This allows the students to see how much their individual donations add up cumulatively when all displayed together. The food is then soon after transported to the United Methodist Church. During past food drives, the students would walk the food down and hand deliver it as a group, but with the current covid-19 regulations, the school is working with the church to implement an alternative transportation method for this year.
Student council sponsor and sixth grade teacher Kristy Lape said the students’ excitement and willingness to help is the main driver of success for the event. She said, “They really do get excited. As they collect the food in the wagons in the morning and then display everything on the shelf, and as it grows throughout the week, it really is empowering for the students to see how much Verner can impact their community.”
The students at the school also reiterated that sentiment. Student council member Payton Williams, a sixth grader who is a multi-year veteran of working the food drive, said, “It’s really fun to stand outside in the mornings and help collect. Towards the end, we usually have a lot of food. It’s a great feeling when you see that the food drive is a success, and that there are people who will not be hungry because of it. It makes all of us happy to be able to help and it’s also changing a lot of people’s lives by providing food, so we’re spreading that happiness around. And it’s also exciting to think of ideas during our student council meetings and then watch it come to fruition during the food drive week.”
Student council secretary Jordyn Bigenho, also in sixth grade, is working her first food drive and is really excited to be involved and looking forward to achieving results. She said, “This is going to help a lot of people who need food and are hungry, so I’m really excited to help this year and also to watch everyone else pitch in and help. I’m just really thankful for everyone who will be bringing in food in order to help other people.”
In addition, the students also collect the tabs from the top of pop cans for donation to the Ronald McDonald House Charities, who are then able to cash in them in for recycling. They are paid by the pound for the tabs, so the more that the students collect, the more money goes to the charity and is used to help feed and house those in need. Both of these charity plans combine to make the Spread The Love motto for the Verner giving campaign a reality for everyone involved.
“I love the idea of having small acts of kindness as simple as bringing a few cans or soda tops in, but then being able to see how big of an impact that has across the community and the feeling that you get when you see that you really did make a difference,” Lape said.