When Salem High School’s Food Science class launched a “Coin Wars” challenge for elementary students, they had no idea it would end with them raising $1,863 for the Salem Food Pantry. For those who know this class, its impact comes as no surprise.
“When a student suggested that funds from the challenge go to the food pantry, it made sense to partner. We have gone over to the food pantry before to help unload donations and stock shelves,” said Amy Maxell, who teaches the Food Science class.
The class is offered as a part of the district’s Agricultural Science program. The course connects classroom learning with real-world work, leading to students getting out of the classroom and into the community.
“Our class is work-based learning, so as a project we organized the kids with the coin challenge, came up with the idea to donate to the food pantry, and used it to help families who need food from the pantry,” said freshman Mary Langevin.
The “Coin Wars” challenged students in grades 3 through 6 to collect the most coins in a two-week time period. The winning class was rewarded with a snack party from the high schoolers, complete with a contest between the high schoolers for best granola bars. This project is another part of the work-based learning course.
“For the snack party, we are designing our own granola bars and boxes, and the kids will vote on the winning granola bars. We thought that the challenge would be a fun opportunity for the little kids to have a competition and it's a good cause, raising money for the food pantry,” said senior Madeline Rea.
Through the Regional Food Bank in Schenectady, the Salem Food Pantry can purchase food at a lower cost than in regular stores, so this donation will stretch further than its dollar amount. Because of their previous work with the pantry, the students knew this and planned accordingly.
“The money from the students will go to filling the gap from the recent increase in needs for food items and help keep our transportation van up and running. We are extremely thankful for the work that went into collecting this donation,” said Director of The Salem Food Pantry Melissa Curtis.