Hunt Meadows PTO wins $10,000

Hunt Meadows PTO, Inc., has won $10,000 in the Child Hunger Ends Here promotion sponsored by ConAgra Foods, Inc.

The organization in cooperation with the school, Hunt Meadows Elementary School, participated in ConAgra's program by raising awareness in the school and community about child hunger.

With assistance from ConAgra, they launched the awareness program at the school and held their yearly Clemson vs. Carolina canned food drive in November. More than 1,200 cans of food were donated by the students of Hunt Meadows.

The yearly food drive is part of their annual Angel Tree program in December.

Families participating in their Angel Tree program, that indicated a need for food assistance, received the food donated during the drive.

The students also clipped and collected ConAgra UPCcodes and turned them in to ConAgra. As part of the Child Hunger Ends Here program, for every UPC code turned in, ConAgra donated one meal to Feeding America.

The school was able to donate 165 meals with this campaign. Those UPC codes were also used as entries into their sweepstakes for a chance at winning $10,000 for field trips. The organization was notified in February that they had been selected as the grand prize winner.

The PTO will be using the money to fund field trips to museums, The Roper Mountain Science Center, and other places as well as funding in-school field trips with Legos, The Roper Mountain Science Center, and other programs that can be brought to the school at a lower cost than taking the students out of the school.

A portion of the money will also be used to help fund their upcoming project, a mobile I-Pad lab, which will allow students to interact with other educational programs and Apps.

We are excited to receive such a generous prize and look forward to working closely with the school principal and teachers to make sure the students receive the best experiences possible.