Brentwood School food drive

Adelle Ellis
Times Reporter

 

Brentwood Elementary pulled together to collect around 3,000 non-perishable food items and toys to be donated to the Christmas Hamper program this year.
Children from all grades in the school set out to collect as many items as they could, and in order to keep it exciting for the kids, a little friendly competition was held.
“They were very excited. The whole school really pulled together actually,” said Laurie Motley, a teacher at the Learning Assistance Centre (LAC).
Each grade was responsible for a certain item such as pasta, baby food or breakfast foods, ensuring that there were a variety of items donated to the Christmas Hamper this year.
The competition held between classes involved a points system where for every item brought in, the class received two points; the class with the most points at the end of the fundraiser would receive a hot dog and float lunch.
Motley’s LAC class is comprised of 32 students who went into each classroom daily to collect and count the food and tally up the points.
In addition to being able to collect food and help those families in need, it was also a “good math lesson,” stated Motley of the benefits of the food drive for her students.
It also helps the students learn first hand other aspects that different courses teach them.
“[A] huge part of the social curriculum talks about being a global citizen,” said Motley.
Brentwood Elementary school has a strong record for helping out the community and people in need.
“The school is always doing something,” said Motley. Recently the Grade 3 class collected socks for the Mustard Seed, and the school also did a Samaritans Box drive this year.
The local Calgary Co-op was keen to help out on the food drive as well, lending shopping carts to the school to be used in a display of all the collected items.
Motley noted that of all the years the school has done a food drive they have never gotten near 3,000 items before.
“This is the best year we’ve ever had,” she said.