GAINFIELD ELEMENTARY CELEBRATES 100 DAYS OF SCHOOL

Schoolchildren Donate Over 2,200 Food Items to Southbury Food Bank

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To celebrate their first 100 days in school, Gainfield Elementary School kindergartners collected 2,296 non-perishable food items that they, in turn, donated to the Southbury Food Bank. On Tuesday, February 10^th, the fifth-grade 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.

“For the last five years, the Gainfield Elementary School kindergartners have collected food and the number of cans and boxes has risen each year,” said Marion Bouffard, GES kindergarten teacher. “Originally, we donated 100 food items from each kindergarten class and now that we’re getting the whole school involved, we’re reaching our goal of over 2,000 items school wide.”

“The project began as a way for children to learn to count to one-hundred. Now we’re seeing them count through the hundreds and into the thousands. Also, the students are organizing the food by letter, as in T for tomato sauce. We’ve never found a canned or boxed food item that starts with an X, but this is a fun and educational project where the whole school works together for the common good. We are so happy that we’ve surpassed our goal of 2,004 items,” said Mrs. Bouffard.

Each week, selected kindergarten students make 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.

“We truly appreciate the generosity of the schoolchildren over the past five years,” said Leslie Hines, president of the Southbury Food Bank. “Collecting food for the needy families of Southbury is such a beautiful idea because it not only tangibly shows how things add up, one by one, but teaches the children how there are people right here in our community who at times have trouble making ends meet. Children can understand that and they want to help.”