Riverhead Students Donate Halloween Candy to Troops

Just in time for Veteran’s Day, students at the Pulaski Street School organized and brought to a finale their Halloween Candy Drive Competition by weighing and boxing up 1,092 pounds of candy from their Halloween stash to send to deployed soldiers.

The “Candy for the Troops” competition was initiated last year at Pulaski by the Brookhaven National Labs’ Veterans Association Adopt-a-Platoon team.

Hayden Richardson, a fifth grade student in Cory Swenk’s class at the Pulaski Street School, shared her story of how she helped her class win the “Candy for the Troops” competition.

“After Halloween I was sick, so we went to the CVS in Wading River to get some medicine. The person behind the counter asked me if I got a lot of candy for Halloween, and I said, ‘I did, but I’m donating it to the military people.’ And she said, ‘We have to get rid of all this Halloween candy.’ And I said, ‘Will you let me take it? I’ll give it to the military people?’ She asked the manager and talked to my dad and pretty soon we had two carloads of candy worth approximately $2,800,” she said.

Richardson shared half the candy with her brother, Carter, who is a sixth grader in Tracy Martin’s class, so his class won the pizza party prize as well.

“We also encouraged the teachers to have their students write letters to send along with the candy, and elementary students made and gave us cards to send along,” noted Ms. Haverty. “In an effort to reinforce some math skills, we had our students working with decimals during the weighing, tracking and graphing process.”

The effort was organized again this year at Pulaski by teacher Cyndi Haverty and her sixth grade class.

According Bob Duffin, the Brookhaven National Lab coordinator, this year’s donation was almost twice the amount the students brought in last year.

The lab will arrange and pay for the shipping costs and the winning classes will receive a pizza party.

Photo Caption: Hayden Richardson (seated) with her 5th grade class (taught by Cory Swenk) at the Pulaski Street School brought in the most candy (at the 5th grade level) during the “Candy for Troops” competition.

Photo courtesy of Riverhead Central School District