GAINFIELD ELEMENTARY CELEBRATES 100 DAYS OF SCHOOL WITH A FOOD DRIVE

Schoolchildren Donate Over 3,000 Food Items to Southbury Food Bank  
(See photo gallery) 

   To celebrate their first 100 days in school, Gainfield Elementary School Kindergartners collected 3,572 non-perishable food items that they, in turn, donated to the Southbury Food Bank. On Friday, February 10^th, older students and staff loaded the boxes of food onto a Southbury town truck for shipping to the Southbury Food Bank, located at the Southbury Training School.

   “The Gainfield Elementary School Kindergartners have collected food for the Food Bank for years and the number of cans and boxes has risen each time,” said Mrs. Marion Bouffard, GES Kindergarten teacher. “This year, however, the participation from students, staff, and teachers has been incredible. Our goal was to collect 2,006 items and we’re way over 3,000.”

   Originally designed as a fun way for children to learn to count to one hundred, the Hundred Day Food Drive, now in its seventh year, teaches the entire school how to count into the hundreds and the thousands.

   At the beginning in 1999, the challenge to collect one hundred items was first contained to the Kindergarten level. Teachers extended the drive school wide during its second year. After September 11^th, the Kindergarten teachers decided to up the stakes and challenge the Gainfield students and staff to collect 2,001 items, in honor of the year, and then increase the goal by one each year.

   The Kindergarten teachers use this food drive not only to help the Southbury Food Bank, but also to teach math and classification skills. For example, the food is organized by letter, as in T for tomato sauce.

   Each week, a Kindergarten student makes a progress announcement on the public address system to the school’s staff, teachers, and students. Representative students from each classroom bring their items to the Kindergarten room each Monday morning where the younger students count and sort the food. The final tally of 3,572 was announced on February 9^th.

   “The food bank is going to be stocked well into springtime,” said Leslie Hines, president of the Southbury Food Bank, “and that is due to the hard work of the students, staff, and teachers of Gainfield Elementary School.”