LEWISTON — St. Dominic Academy students recently held a food drive to benefit St. Mary’s Food Pantry.

With the goal of helping people in need, the fifth-grade class organized a food drive just before Thanksgiving to help the 208 Bates St. food pantry, according to Assistant Principal Donald Bilodeau.

“The students challenged their peers to donate nonperishable food items from their own pantries and place them in designated receptacles at the school,” Bilodeau said in a news release.

The fifth-graders also held a Halloween dance to help reach their goal of collecting 1,000 pounds of food. At the end of the annual community service project, students loaded a school bus with the food and delivered it to the pantry.

Then students helped sort and weigh the food. They discovered they exceeded their goal by collecting 1,037 pounds of food.

“Certainly, the fifth-graders at St. Dom have learned this holiday season that giving truly is receiving,” Bilodeau said.

Joyce Gagnon of St. Mary’s Food Pantry said students helped by not only “packing the pantry with food,” but also organizing. “The food needs to be weighed and sorted. That was a huge help,” she said. Without help from the students, “we wouldn’t be able to get the food out. It wouldn’t be possible,” Gagnon said.

The need for families “is great; it’s always great,” she said.

For more information or to make a donation to St. Mary’s Food Pantry, call Gagnon from 8 to 11 a.m. at 513-3841.

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