Courtesy photo
Lincoln School Students nourish neighbors
Garwood Public Schools
The Foundation for Impact on Literacy and Learning (FILL) in partnership with the Albertsons Company Foundation’s Nourishing Neighbors Program recognizes students’ efforts as they work to end hunger in their neighborhoods. This past year, teams of students in communities across 15 states worked to improve availability and access to food through various community service projects as part of FILL’s Explore.Act.Tell. program. The teams had the opportunity to enter their hunger solution projects in a challenge for a chance to win grants to support local hunger-related non-profit organizations.
Middle school students in the enrichment program at Lincoln School studied food insecurity in their community, county, state, and country, then designed a plan to collect food focusing on nutritious items from all five food groups, especially those categories most often overlooked during donation drives. In June, the four students in the enrichment program spent an afternoon at Kings of Garwood, encouraging shoppers–fellow students and teachers, too– to donate from a list of needed foods–especially items in the protein and dairy category.
Their six-month initiative concluded with a donation of over twenty full bags of groceries to the Five Loaves Food Pantry located at the Church of Saint Anne in Garwood. Students filmed a short video of their endeavors and entered it in the competition.
Eighteen grants were awarded as part of the Explore.Act.Tell.Challenge. Top teams from participating schools–including the Garwood Mustangs team– received a grant for their community charity of choice to address hunger solutions. Each of these teams worked to EXPLORE hunger, ACT by doing a project and TELL others by sharing their story.
The Lincoln School team was one of only six New Jersey schools to receive one thousand dollars as a donation to the food pantry in Garwood. The students were recognized for being good citizens, planners, and donors.
