By Kenzie Gamlin | HCCSC Communications Intern
The Salamonie Elementary School Student Council and National Elementary Honor Society held a food drive for the Warren Food Pantry and a United Way Help-A-Thon. In total, students brought in and donated 1,734 food items for the Warren Food Pantry and raised $1,537 to be donated to United Way of Huntington County.
The food drive was a school-wide event hosted by Salamonie’s student council. Every class received the challenge to donate as much canned and boxed food as possible in exchange for the knowledge of helping those in need and, of course, receiving some well-deserved rewards.
Mrs. Roller’s third-grade class donated the most items at Salamonie, giving 411 food items. Because of their exceptional donations, each student earned $15 in Rebel Bucks, which is Salamonie’s school currency, and the opportunity to build a domino train of all the boxes that were donated by students.
After building the box domino train, each class had the opportunity to guess how many boxes made up the extensive line. Mrs. Salzmann’s second-grade class guessed the closest to the reality of the train, guessing 788 while the train consisted of 815. As a reward, the class earned movie theater box candy to set up a train of their own.
Not only was the box domino train truly long, but it took almost two minutes to fall.
“The student council worked so hard on our successful food drive this year, especially with the addition of our domino box drop challenge,” said Salamonie Counselor Melinda Huber. “I’m so thankful for all of our student body and their generous hearts.”
Salamonie’s student council did not stop at just collecting, however. They also went to the Warren Pantry and unloaded all of the items they had collected over the previous weeks.
The United Way Help-A-Thon was also underway this fall season at Salamonie. The Help-A-Thon was a fundraiser hosted by the National Elementary Honor Society based on students doing good deeds for others in exchange for donations to United Way. Students were given sheets to fill out what good deeds they performed and what donations they were given in return for performing those good deeds.
The top donor was Jax Erickson, a first-grader at Salamonie. He raised an impressive $200 by telling others to have a good day, helping do the dishes, drawing a picture for his grandparents, writing a letter, washing his dad’s car, taking out the trash, helping load the dishwasher and picking up his toys.
For all of his good deeds, he won $25 in Rebel Bucks and a stuffed version of Liesl, the trained therapy dog that roams the halls with owner and art teacher Cindy Callison.
The class that raised the most money doing good deeds for others was Mrs. Long’s first-grade class. For all of their hard work, they earned puppy chow and an afternoon with Liesl.
“Part of helping our students to understand what it means to be upstanding citizens is in teaching them to care about people in their community,” said Salamonie Principal Dawn Collins. “It is such a great lesson to our students to see that even their small contributions as young people can add up to great things that truly impact the people that they live near and interact with in our small community.”