Woodland Elementary cares "a ton"

Kindergarten through fifth-grade students at Woodland Elementary in the Avondale School District rallied together to collect more than 2,000 pounds of food for the annual school-wide food drive that will support thirty Woodland Elementary families during the holidays. “We had an overwhelming response to donate this year – doubling the amount of food collected during past drives,” said principal Arryn Schneider, “it was a full community effort demonstrating that Woodland families care about each other.”

Schneider had set a goal of 1,000 pounds of food to be collected in eleven days. About half-way through the campaign, the staff and students reached that goal so Schneider raised the bar. “I wanted to challenge the students to go beyond the goal we’d set so each day I would tell them to reach a little higher.” Since the food was counted and weighed according to homerooms, she created the “100 pound club” and as individual classes collected 100 pounds of food, she celebrated them during morning announcements and wrote their names on a special snowman hanging where the students could see their classroom’s progress when they passed by.

“Because all of the students were involved in collecting, counting, weighing and sorting the donations, the students were very aware of how their class was doing and a friendly competition developed,” said Schneider. She added that she felt that “competition aside, the students understood how the drive would help their classmates who needed it. They were donating for all of the right reasons.”

Fifth-graders Noah Kim and Rekha Krispin were happy to donate and understood the importance of what they were doing. “There are kids who don’t have enough food and they need our help,” said Rekha. “They maybe even want food more than they want toys for Christmas.” Noah agreed, adding that “people should donate food all year round – not just during Christmas.”

The donations will be bundled and boxed by Woodland Elementary Boy Scouts and made available to families receiving support from Blessings in a Backpack with any remainder going to Gleaners Food Bank.

“I’m proud of our students and the way they responded to the drive. Some of them are very young and very small but they have such big hearts,” said Schneider.

rop]?qE