CHANGING HUNGER: John Witherspoon Middle School students visited the Mercer Street Friends Food Bank in Ewing the day before Thanksgiving as part of the school’s Students Change Hunger food drive that collected 11,464 pounds of food. (Photo Courtesy of John Witherspoon Middle School)

By Donald Gilpin

John Witherspoon Middle School (JWMS) students, their families, teachers, and staff have come together with community partners to collect almost 12,000 pounds of food for the Mercer Street Friends Food Bank.

Kelly Riely, faculty advisor to the Do Something Club, which organized the drive, expressed her appreciation “for the awesome outpouring of food and money donations,” pushing JWMS to easily surpass its original goal of 10,000 pounds. 

Many community businesses collaborated, under the supervision of parent volunteer Sandy Moskovitz, to collect over 1,000 pounds of food. The Bent Spoon led the way with over 300 pounds.

Riely praised student and adult participants for “uniting around the need to stop hunger. Every donation made a difference for a person facing food insecurity.”

In addition to daily announcements, website postings, PTO newsletter announcements, bake sales, and pretzel sales, students ran several challenges, including a homeroom competition, a slogan competition, a “march” madness challenge, and a Hunger Games competition with more than 14 teams participating.

“I was once asked, ‘Why does social service matter?’” said Riely. “I was told perhaps we should just focus on the academics within the walls of the school building. Teachers focus on raising empathetic students who critically think to problem-solve for the future. Giving students opportunities to take part in service learning is one more component to developing empathetic, kind people who will change the world for the good.”

Mercer Street Friends Manager of Special Projects and Volunteers Brian Peterson emphasized the importance of the JWMS efforts. “They are amazing,” he said, referring to the student-driven JWMS contingent. ”It’s touching to see them addressing the problem of hunger. It’s wonderful to see them so passionate about this cause.”

Peterson described the JWMS students’ visit to the Mercer Street Friends Food Bank headquarters in Ewing on the day before Thanksgiving. “They saw generosity come alive in the warehouse,” he said. “It was wonderful to see everyone come in, roll up their sleeves, and volunteer.”

Mercer Street Friends is one of five New Jersey food banks. It distributes the food from JWMS and elsewhere to a local food pantry, soup kitchen, shelter, or feeding program, where it will then be given to local people in need.

The New Jersey food banks distribute over 71 million pounds of food each year. This food is then distributed to nearly 2,000 community partners, and in turn is given to approximately 1.1 million New Jersey residents.

The Students Change Hunger program had a record year in 2016, with a total of 229 schools participating statewide, gathering 231,934 pounds of food and over $30,000 in monetary contributions.

JWMS is competing with other schools throughout the state for the New Jersey Federation of Food Banks 2017 Governor’s Cup, which JWMS won three years ago. The top five scoring schools from each of the five state food banks will become the 25 state finalists for the Governor’s Cup.