Encampment K-12 achieves food drive goal

Students from Encampment School achieved their school-wide food drive goal last week, with more than 2,000 food items collected for their community food pantry.

The school's student council encouraged classes to participate in the four-day holiday season food drive, with a goal to fill the pantry with at least 2,000 non-perishable food items. The items could include any canned, boxed or bagged food that would go toward the Encampment community food pantry.

Through a competitive effort, the goal was met with a total of 2,309 food items donated from all 12 grades.

"I'm not surprised we did it, because we have set other goals like this and blown them out of the water," said Student Council President Brett Miller. "This was a reassurance that when we set a goal we can accomplish it, and to greater heights than we thought."

Students had from Nov. 18-21 to collect as many non-perishable food items as possible, and put them in the box provided for their class. The middle school and high school had boxes in the room of their class sponsor, and the totals from each class were added up Thursday morning.

The 10th-grade class won a pizza party for donating the most food items (372) out of the middle and high school grades. The third -grade class earned one for having the most food items (267) out of the elementary grades. Grades could also earn an ice cream party for achieving the largest number of items per student. The ninth-grade class had 20 items per student, the most out of the middle and high school grades, and the second grade class had 15 items per student, the most out of the elementary grades.

For all individual class totals, the kindergarten class brought in 219 food items, first grade brought in 111, second grade had 120, third grade had 267, fourth grade had 125, fifth grade had 204, sixth grade had 101, seventh grade had 203, eighth grade had 82, ninth grade had 180, 10th grade had 372, 11th grade had 67 and 12th grade had 258.

"Last year our goal was for 1,800 food items and we accomplished that, so we decided to set it higher this year," Miller said. "We knew there was no stopping us, and that we could make it over 2,000."