STUDENTS FROM COUNSELOR Jessica Bodell’s La Center Elementary School’s Bobcat Ambassadors student leadership class help sort and count food donations to the elementary school’s Stuff the Bus food drive on Tues., Nov. 17. Pictured here are fifth-graders Hayley Hall, 11 (left), and Lorelei Herber, 10.
STUDENTS FROM LA Center Middle School teacher Janice Broten’s leadership class, Ashlynn Macho, 13 (right), and Brian Simensen, 13, both eighth-graders, count food donations and mark points for food that is particularly nutritious and packed with protein, like nut butters, for the school’s annual Stuff the Bus food drive.
LA CENTER ELEMENTARY School students (from left to right) Clayton Muffett, 10, Savannah Mendenhall, 11, and Nicholas Seavey, 10, help pack food donations for the school’s Stuff the Bus food drive, which helps restock regional food banks during the Thanksgiving holiday season.
LA CENTER MIDDLE School seventh-graders Katie Steward, 12 (left), and Eric Johnson, 12, inspect the quality and nutritional value of non-perishable foods donated to the school’s Stuff the Bus food drive. Students at the La Center middle school are engaged in a friendly rivalry with Kalama Middle School students to see which school can collect the most food to help restock regional food pantries during the holiday season. Last year, students in La Center schools collected more than 13,000 pounds of food for Clark County food banks.
LA CENTER – There’s nothing new about school rivalries, but for students at the La Center Middle School, this year’s seasonal rivalry with the Kalama Middle School has a bit of an unexpected twist – instead of competing for a trophy or state championship, these students are competing to see which school can collect the most food for the annual Stuff the Bus food drive.
“It was my idea, to have a friendly rivalry with Kalama this year,” says La Center Middle School teachers and leadership class advisor Janice Broten. “The high school put it into their fliers, and we’ve had some community members drop off donations to help us beat Kalama.”
The students won’t know which school came out on top until after Kalama’s food drive in December, but La Center students aren’t too worried. After all, La Center kids know a thing or two about collecting food for local food pantries: Last year, the La Center Middle School’s donation of 5,359 pounds of food to Share, Inc., a Vancouver-based nonprofit that assists homeless and hungry populations throughout Clark County, was the largest single donation Share had ever received.
This year, the students in La Center expanded the time period for donating food to three weeks, and kept their friendly competition among middle school homerooms to motivate students. Students at the La Center elementary and high schools also collected food for the school district’s Stuff the Bus event.
For three weeks, the students in Broten’s leadership class sorted and inspected food donations, ensuring that the cans and boxes were in good shape and marking each donation off according to its healthfulness – high-protein, shelf-stable foods like nut butters, canned meats and canned bean soups received the most points.
La Center students packed three school buses, provided by KWRL Transportation Cooperative, with their collections, and donated the food to three regional food banks: Share, Clark County Food Bank and the Lewis River Mobile Food Bank.
Many of Broten’s seventh- and eighth-graders have experienced the food drive before, but said this year’s effort was a bit different.
“The teachers talked to us about the food banks before we started (collecting) this year, so I think people understand what it’s for and why it’s important,” said Eric Johnson, 12, a seventh-grader at La Center Middle School.
Broten agreed with Johnson and said the students heard a presentation from a Feed the Children representative before beginning the Stuff the Bus campaign, so many students seemed better connected to the campaign’s end goal of helping feed hungry people throughout Clark County.
Other students noted that this year’s food drive seems more inclusive and organized.
“It seems like someone is always willing to step up and help out with the counting,” Spencer Holm, 12, said.
Isabella Abbott, 13, an eighth-grader in Broten’s leadership class, agreed: “When we come in to (count the donations), if someone doesn’t have cans or doesn’t have a job, other people help out. It seems more organized.”
For some students, who participated in the food drive by collecting and dropping off cans and boxes, the transition into Broten’s leadership class, where students spend an average of 30 minutes each weekday, for about three weeks’ worth of time, counting and organizing the donations, was an eye-opening experience.
“I didn’t realize how much work goes into it,” said Brian Simensen, 13, an eighth-grader in Broten’s leadership class, of the behind-the-scenes Stuff the Bus campaign. “It takes a lot of time to organize all of this food.”
The students were still in their collection stage and didn’t have a final tally in time for this paper’s deadline, but said they were hoping the La Center schools would beat last year’s figures, which donated more than 13,000 pounds to regional food pantries.
