Generosity and benevolence evident in our students
by Isaiah Miles Mader, Blue Ink staff writer with additions from the Gazette Editor
Garretson Middle School recently completed their 14th annual “Souper Bowl” where they collect and donate food for the local food pantry. The 6th through 8th graders were able to collect 1,175 items, making it one of the food pantry’s biggest contributions every year.
For the first nine years of its existence, the “Souper Bowl” was split up between the STETs who squared off against each other. Five years ago they changed it to have each grade battle one another to spark more com- petition and raise the amount of donations. This switch certainly helped this year as they reached an average of 10 donations per student, which was the highest ever.
Middle school teacher Mr. Terwee, who organizes the event said, “I’m just really proud of the kids and how much they gave; it’s neat to see kids do things like this without any recognition.”
The 6th graders were able to take the crown this year, hauling in an average of 12.17 items per student and won the prize of front of the lunch line for a week. The 7th graders closely followed in second by bringing in 12.02 items per kid. The 8th graders took last place, but were still able to contribute 8.6 items per person.
The “Souper Bowl” is a fun opportunity to contribute to the local families in need and raise awareness for the food
pantry. And it’s not just the Middle School who gave generously.
“We had a total of 1834 items from the entire school,” said Terwee. “The highest amount we have taken to the food pantry in the last 14 years!”
Alexa Hoefert-Veldhuizen organized the elementary food drive.
“This is the first year that the elementary participated,” she said. “It was a lot of fun for the kids. We worked with Mrs. Johnson and with Mr. Terwee. In the lunchroom we put up a football field banner and each class moved their football a little closer to the touchdown line as they gath- ered more donations, and they looked every day to see who was winning. We also used it as an opportunity to do math in class, like how many cans of soup could fit inside a football helmet for example. As we gathered the donations, the Vikings were still in the running and doing well so we had a lot of excitement. I’m not sure on the final numbers per class, but I can say that each elementary student contributed one item for certain.”
In total the elementary contributed 659 donations. 1834 is not a small amout of food! Mr. Terwee’s pickup was not big enough to haul all the donations to the food pantry, and so students loaded a second pickup belonging to a parent volunteer at the last moment when they delivered the goods to the food pantry on Feb. 6.
