Schools team up to gather, package food for needy folks

T.C. Martin, St. Mary's Bryantown get together to help

Friday, Nov. 28, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Submitted photo Karissa Coates, left, of T.C. Martin Elementary School and Seth Weingarden of St. Mary's Bryantown School help sort through boxes of macaroni and cheese for the baskets the children made last Friday for the food drive. The school teamed with St. Mary's Catholic School and Boy Scout Troop 1321 to collect enough food to feed 70 families for Thanksgiving. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

Joan Chapman has volunteered at St. Mary's School and Church for more than 50 years.

Chapman remembers the annual holiday food drive the church does as something she would do with her parents many years ago.

"The tradition started when volunteers from [the] St. Vincent de Paul [Society] would collect food, and then we would deliver the baskets to the needy families every year," she said. "Now the only thing which has changed is that the families come to the church to pick them up."

The students of St. Mary's Bryantown School teamed with students from T.C. Martin Elementary School and Boy Scout Troop 1321 to provide food baskets for 70 needy families during the holiday season.

Last Friday, the students from St. Mary's and T.C. Martin were gathered in the St. Mary's School cafeteria sorting food and getting ready to make baskets.

Linda Dade, instructional assistant for T.C. Martin, said the school enjoys reaching out and helping.

"We like to celebrate service to the community, and this is a way of helping," Dade said. "We also have some families whose children attend T.C. Martin School who will benefit from the food drive. Another one of our students was up for an award today, but she chose to come here and make food baskets instead. She was going to be honored for getting straight A's."

Karissa Coates, 10, of Dentsville was the T.C. Martin student who gave up her award ceremony honors to work on the food baskets.

"It just felt like the right thing to do," Karissa said. "Plus I get an award every semester."

Sharon Caniglia, principal of St. Mary's Bryantown, said the school has been planning the food drive since September.

"We sent the information about the food drive home in our newsletters," Caniglia said. "We asked different grades to bring in different things, like the first-graders to bring in pumpkin pie filling, and the third-graders to bring in mashed potatoes, so we wouldn't get too much of one food item."

Caniglia also asked the eighth-graders to bring in money, so they were able to purchase $25 gift cards to McKay's, which the family could use to purchase turkeys.

"McKay's gave us a 5 percent discount on the cards, also," Chapman said.

Katie Butkiewicz, 13, of La Plata was helping sort through the canned goods. Butkiewicz is a student at St. Mary's.

"We as a community want to help and give the needy food so they will be able to receive it for Thanksgiving," Butkiewicz said. "Doing this has made me more aware of the people in need."

Trinity Haley, 8, of Hughesville attends T.C. Martin. Her family is receiving a basket this year.

"I am just happy my family is receiving a basket this year," Trinity said. "This is the first year we have gotten a basket. It just makes things better."

The children were happily sorting through mountains of cans of green beans, sweet potatoes, tuna and corn bread mix.

Anna Haugh, leader of Boy Scout Troop 1321, said her troop was able to collect more than 1,000 pounds of food during its food drive.

"It is amazing in theses hard economic times that people are so generous," Haugh said. "I was surprised to see all the food come in."

Not all the contributions came in cans and boxes.

Henry Middleton, one of the church deacons, had traveled to a wholesale market and brought back cases of fresh turnips, cabbage, apples and sweet potatoes.

"It was a big help that he was so generous," Chapman said. "But Mr. Middleton is always building things and donating items to the school."

"The two schools have been working together for 10 years now," Chapman said, as Dade was preparing to gather the T.C. Martin students to go back across the street to their school.

"It was crazy hair day at school today, and the kids gave up doing that so they could be here to help make the baskets," Dade said.

jnazdin@somdnews.com