Students team up to fight hunger

Call it class warfare.

For the sixth year in a row, Kathy Giles’ seventh-grade students at West Junior High School have done more for the community than their counterparts in the school’s other seventh-grade team.

“We haven’t lost yet,” Giles said early Thursday afternoon as students readied boxes of canned goods for delivery to the ECKAN food pantry.

Each year, Giles explained, the two teams compete to see which can do the most good for the community. The good – in this case, the number of canned goods – is divided by the number of students.

The 40 students on Giles’ team averaged 5.4 cans each while the competition, Amy Yates’ 130 students, averaged 2.5 cans. Together, the two teams collected 541 cans of food.

Yates’ students “collected more than we did,” Giles said, “but we collected more per-pupil.”

She added, “It’s a math exercise as well.”

This year’s competition focused on canned goods in response to reports that local charities’ food pantries were running low.

From left, West Junior High seventh-graders Stefan Kuczera, Lucas Smith and Lilly Cottrell on Thursday help load canned food to take to the ECKAN pantry. The students donated the food to win a competition.

“We’re definitely down from where we were last year,” said Paul Hunt, who oversees the pantry at the Ballard Community Center, 708 Elm. “Last year, we had trouble finding places to put the stuff; this year, we’re having trouble coming up with the stuff.”

The same, he said, is true at the city’s other charity pantries.

In recognition of their victory, Giles’ students will be feted with an in-class movie – “We’ve chosen ‘Herbie,'” she said – with popcorn and soda.

Though her team lost, seventh-grader Lindsey Morris praised the groups’ efforts.

“We like to help people out,” she said. “I don’t think anyone should have to live in poverty, but it looks like America doesn’t have enough money to give everybody food or a job.”