YOUR AD HERE »

CMS students host drive to benefit food bank

Darian Warden
Cans of food line the inside of the Inter Faith Food Bank. Collected by Craig Middle School, seventh graders in Drew Morris's focus group, who collected the most cans, delivered the canned goods to the food bank Thursday morning.
Darian Warden

Quotable

“It feels good to give food to other people.”

— Alyssa Spencer, 7th Grader at Craig Middle School, about the CMS canned food drive

Quotable

“It feels good to give food to other people.”

— Alyssa Spencer, 7th Grader at Craig Middle School, about the CMS canned food drive

Craig Middle School students took on the challenge of collecting 3,000 cans of food for the Inter Faith Food Bank this month, and reached their goal just in the nick of time.



The school did their drive a month earlier than normal at the request of the food bank.

“Our buyer is buying what we absolutely have to,” Barbara Baker of the Inter Faith Food Bank said. “We’re not doing Thanksgiving baskets this year, we can’t afford it.”



The addition of the donations from the middle school allows the food bank to give items it wouldn’t normally be able to.

“This new extra stuff is fun to give,” Baker said.

In raising 2,125 pounds of food and $540, students earned the privilege of dressing up for Halloween, and the class that raised the most got to deliver the cans and have lunch at Pizza Hut.

Drew Morris’s 7th grade focus group collected the most cans with 482, and won for the first time.

Morris’s motivation tactic?

“I pestered them constantly,” Morris said.

Aside from the rewards, Morris said the activity was good for kids to be a part of.

“They actually see the food going to the food bank and people in need. It’s a lot of good for the community,” Morris said.

Along with the seventh graders delivering the cans Thursday morning was sixth grader Tyler Davidson, who collected 106 cans on his own.

“I felt like helping the school out,” Davidson said. “I went around the neighborhood and got cans and $20.”

While it was his first year participating in the drive, Davidson said he plans to beat his record next year and that his persistence is the key to his success.

“Sometimes I hit the jackpot house and sometimes I didn’t get anything,” Davidson said.

Seventh grader Alyssa Spencer said she participated and helped her class win because it was fun and for a good cause.

“It feels good to give food to other people,” Spencer said.

Jordan Goodwin, also a seventh grader, brought in the equivalent of 85 cans between actual cans and cash.

Every $1 purchases two cans.

She said she collected so many because she empathized with those who were less fortunate, saying her family hadn’t always had it so easy.

Beth Gilchrist, secretary at Craig Middle School, said the kids benefited from the drive in more ways than one.

“We’re evolving away from volunteering,” Gilchrist said. “Kids expect to get paid for everything they do. This is an opportunity to do something good for someone else.”

Darian Warden can be reached at 875-1793 or dwarden@craigdailypress.com


Support Local Journalism

Support Local Journalism

Readers around Craig and Moffat County make the Craig Press’ work possible. Your financial contribution supports our efforts to deliver quality, locally relevant journalism.

Now more than ever, your support is critical to help us keep our community informed about the evolving coronavirus pandemic and the impact it is having locally. Every contribution, however large or small, will make a difference.

Each donation will be used exclusively for the development and creation of increased news coverage.