Throughout April, students at Muriel Clayton Middle School in Airdrie rallied together to collect non-perishable food items for their annual food drive, as part of a larger Rocky View Schools initiative called Get Into G.E.A.R.!
The program, which stands for Gathering Edibles for Airdrie Residents, aims to address the excesses and shortages of other school food drives in the community, particularly seeking to level the supply of food to the Airdrie Food Bank. As part of the initiative, participating schools are assigned one of 10 months in a school year, and are encouraged to collect food during that month. They are also asked to promote and run the food drive in whatever way they see fit.
Muriel Clayton is assigned the month of April, but due to spring break, the school only had three weeks to gather goods for the food drive. According to Lori Harknett-Kirby, child development advisor at Muriel Clayton, in order to meet the challenge the school had set for themselves – a total of 1,500 food items – they created a friendly competition between classes called the “pantry party.”
“Everybody at this time of year is having such a hard time with everything, and so these kids just get so excited to help out the community – we even had kids take a wagon and go door-to-door. They were just so excited [and] eager to give back,” Harknett-Kirby said.
She added the school had pinned soup cans onto a bulletin board, with a graph showing which class had collected the most food items throughout the food drive. Every week, staff would collect food from the classes, tally the numbers and do a final count to “pump it up” for the kids.
As part of the Get Into G.E.A.R.! initiative, students at Muriel Clayton Middle School rallied together donations for the Airdrie Food Bank during the month of April. Photo submitted/For Airdrie City View“This school just blows me away – any time we have an opportunity to do something for the community, they just soar,” Harknett-Kirby said. “It’s just such a testament to the school and the kids that are in it,”
The students ultimately exceeded their goal by almost double, according to Harknett-Kirby, with a total of 2,996 food items collected.
The annual food drive was cancelled last year due to COVID-19, but according to Harknett-Kirby, who has been with Rocky View Schools for seven years, G.E.A.R. has been an annual initiative in the school district for quite some time. In her two years with Muriel Clayton, she said she has witnessed a student body that is always eager to help.
“Our school benefits from the food bank,” she said. “There are lots of kids that come to school with no food here at [Muriel Clayton]. Over 33,000 lunches are donated every year to schools throughout the food bank.
“It was really for these kids about giving back and helping others and helping their community, and the school spirit that it invoked. [The kids] just really want[ed] to help out and do their part.”
Harknett-Kirby said her role at Muriel Clayton includes looking after student’s “social and emotional needs, and mental health,” adding initiatives like the annual food drive are helpful in that regard.
She added the “pantry party” brought together students, while the friendly inter-class competition sparked teamwork and school spirit within the student body.
“Every week you have a kid bringing in a giant bag, and then the week after he’s bringing in another giant bag,” she said. “The Clayton school spirit is mind blowing – you give this group of kids a cause and they are on it collectively.”
Some students took to their neighbourhoods to generate more donations for the initiative. Photo submitted/For Airdrie City ViewTwo of the students who were especially inspired by the initiative took a wagon and went door-to-door throughout April to collect goods for their class. Although Harknett-Kirby said they did not encourage this, the students ensured they took all safety precautions, including wearing masks and gloves, and quarantining the food for 72 hours.
Grade 7 student Keira Biggar said she felt the food drive was successful and people in the community were eager to show their support.
“I wanted to see if people actually wanted to help or if they didn’t want to help, but I thought it was just helpful to [go door-to-door],” Biggar said. “Most of them were like ‘Just wait here, I’ll go grab some things and I’ll come right back’.”
Fellow Grade 7 student Emma Ginter said her favourite part of the food drive was “helping out…and seeing all the faces on the people when they said ‘Good luck’ and ‘Good luck to getting food for the food drive’.”
Both students said they were excited when their class won the “pantry party” challenge, collectively contributing a total of 531 items to the Airdrie Food Bank.
Harknett-Kirby added she felt such pride for both the students and the rest of the school for their contributions, and for rising to the challenge of supporting a local charity.
“I really want the community to see what the kids do, because we come from all kinds of socioeconomic backgrounds at the school, and it’s just so important for these guys to do what they’re doing,” she said.
Carmen Cundy, AirdrieToday.com
Follow me on Twitter @carmenrcundy
