Craig Middle School food drive breaks records, restocks food bank shelves
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Craig — Just as Moffat County’s Interfaith Food Bank shelves were beginning to look rather bare, Craig Middle School students came to the rescue with a monumentally successful “Feed Moffat County” food drive.
“We are the biggest supporter of the food (bank) in the fall and they rely on us for their Thanksgiving food bank,” said food drive organizer and sixth-grade language arts teacher Vicki Blomquist.
The annual food drive, held Oct. 20 to Nov. 20, pitted student “Focus” classes against each other in a friendly competition to see which class could bring in the most donations.
This year, the classes got creative and leveraged their efforts by organizing fundraising activities, such as dodgeball and volleyball tournaments, concessions, a fall camouflage-themed dance and a competitive marshmallow obstacle race.
“Times are tough right now, so a lot of classes weren’t able to bring things in, and that’s where I think they started thinking outside the box and how to bring in cans,” Blomquist said.
The students and staff brought in a total of $4,732 in cash and 2,280 pounds of food that was delivered to the Interfaith Food Bank on Tuesday by Blomquist’s winning Focus class.
“This year’s food drive crushed all past food drives with regard to the amount of cash and nonperishable food donations,” Blomquist wrote in an email. “We beat all of our previous drives by over 5,000 cans, and we exceeded our goal of 15,000 cans.”
Four classrooms surpassed the 2,000-can mark, with Blomquist’s sixth-graders bringing in a total of 2,579 cans. Kim Heater’s and Bobbie Evenson’s sixth-grade classes and Becky Field’s seventh-grade class collected 2,210 cans, 2,035 cans and 2,021 cans, respectively.
“This community is just awesome,” said Interfaith Food Bank volunteer Annie Stehlin, citing CMS’s generosity as proof of recent news that Moffat County was named the 10th most charitable Colorado county by The Chronicle of Philanthropy.
The winning CMS classes will be hosted by the city of Craig at the Moffat County Ice Arena at Loudy-Simpson Park in December to reward them for their efforts.
Contact Lauren Blair at 970-875-1794 or lblair@CraigDailyPress.com or follow her on Twitter @CDP_Education.
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