Students in Liz Frederick’s class at Grassy Creek Elementary School helped load baskets full of boxed and canned goods onto the trailer of a pickup truck Friday.
About 1,800 food items will go toward the Good Cheer Fund, donations of food to economically challenged families in Johnson County in the days leading up to Christmas.
Students in Frederick’s fifth-grade class brought in 182 of those items, including ramen noodles, canned vegetables and soup, earning the right to help load them onto the truck Friday. The students were rewarded with a showing of “Polar Express” that afternoon.
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“I just told them where the cans are going and the importance of it,” Frederick said. “It’s helping families in need this time of year, and it’s what the holiday spirit is about. They’re really competitive and wanted to be the winning class.”
Contributing to help others who are less fortunate was a good motivator, student Annibelle Rivera said.
“It was fun because we got to help load the truck and help the people who don’t have food,” Rivera said.
At East Side Elementary School, students are motivated by the opportunity to throw pies in the faces of Principal Jason Schoettmer and some teachers. As of Wednesday, the school had collected more than 4,800 food items, such as bottled water, ramen noodles and canned foods, and school officials expected to exceed last year’s tally of about 6,000 items, Schoettmer said.
“The child with the most cans donated per classroom does the pie in the face,” Schoettmer said. “The kids enjoy seeing their principal and teachers get a pie in the face. It’s been going on as long as I can remember. I did it as a teacher here. It’s been going on at least the last 10 years, but probably (longer).”
On Friday, custodian Jack White brought a trailer to the school, which items were loaded onto and transported to Greenwood and Franklin, where volunteers will pack them in the early morning hours on Saturday to be delivered to homes of families in need. Typically, Johnson County students donate about 35,000 canned and non-perishable food items to Good Cheer.
“It’s a way to get kids involved in giving for the season,” Schoettmer said. “A lot of times we get caught up in material things and things we want, but this is a reminder of giving and caring for others.”
At Franklin Community Schools, canned foods have been accumulating in preparation for Good Cheer. At Union Elementary School, students collected 767 cans of food, and in some classrooms, there are contests for who could donate the most cans.
Custer Baker Intermediate School’s student council is sponsoring this year’s Good Cheer drive, and the Bible Club there also contributed food items, along with donations of canned goods from the student body, spokesperson Robin Betts said in an email.
At Creekside Elementary School, baskets of food sat in each classroom, ready to be collected Friday, Principal Mark Heiden said.
“We have Good Cheer baskets at every classroom and encourage canned goods and non-perishable food for donation. Mac and cheese is really popular,” Heiden said.
“We want kids to know about helping families and how important that is.”
