Caring kids and teachers stock food pantry shelves
WILTON – A million, some guessed. Maybe a gazillion, one said optimistically.
The number of plastic bags stocked full of non-perishable food items donated by Academy Hill School students and staff to the Wilton Area Food Pantry last Friday was actually counted out to be 459.
It didn’t seem to matter. Kids were happy to help. After all, helping your neighbors out feels good, they said.
“If people don’t have food, it makes me sad,” admitted Brittney Conley, an 11-year-old from Wilton who was one of nearly 200 people who lined the streets between the school and the pantry for the annual food pass.
Pausing only occasionally to pull back the plastic handles and peak inside, oohing-and-ahhing ever so often when the contents looked yummy, Conley stood feet firm the cold pavement, pivoting back and forth as she took bags from a friend and passed them along.
“I like going back and forth,” she said of the monotonous task. “But it does make you hungry. It’s okay though, because we know that we’re helping people less fortunate than us. It’s nice to help people, even though I don’t know them. I do know they are getting food.”
Academy Hill students and staff passed upward of 1,500 items of food that will help stock the shelves at the non-denominational panty housed in the Methodist Church.
The food can’t come at a better time, said pantry organizer Kathleen McDonald. With the holiday season coming, demand for food couldn’t be higher.
The emergency pantry provides up to a three-day supply of food each month for needy people.
Kim Alexander, a teacher at the school, said students look forward to the annual food pass. For the past two weeks, students have been bringing in all sorts of items, everything from boxes of macaroni and cheese to stewed tomatoes and Raman noodles. On Thursday, the food was bagged and on Friday morning, carried outside where a sea of blue and white bags filled the school’s lawn.
Despite the chilly November air and a slight drizzle, many students shucked their winter jackets and rolled up their sleeves, working up quite a sweat in the 90 minutes the pass took.
“You get hot,” said Meg Hall, 9, of East Dixfield, her jacket tossed aside on the sidewalk. “And your hands start to hurt. But if feels good because you’re helping a lot of people.”
Denae LaGrange, 11, of Wilton, quantified just how good it felt. “You know you’re helping people, so it’s fun,” she explained, saying that swinging the bags was the best part. “All this stuff could feed the whole town of Wilton, maybe even Farmington.
“They’ll be bright big smiles on people’s faces when they get this food at Thanksgiving. Smiles like when the summer starts and schools over, that’s how happy they’ll be.”
After the last bag had worked its way down the line with the help of tiny hands, kids grabbed their coats, returned to the classrooms and back to the books.
The school doesn’t dish out prizes to students or classes based on how much food was passed out, Alexander said. Students are content with that warm-fuzzy feeling that comes from giving.
“It’s just something nice for us to do,” she explained. “We don’t need a reward.”
Academy Hill isn’t the only one pitching in.
At the University of Maine at Farmington, the Campus Residence Council and other supporting campus groups organized a drive, passing out bags to houses in Farmington and Wilton a few weeks ago then going door to door Saturday to collect the bags filled with food.
Several events on campus were also held to raise money for the pantry.
The Wilton Area Food Pantry is open Tuesday through Friday, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
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