Diane Raver

Staff Writer

During the last week in February, nine Batesville Intermediate School fifth-grade students in Brandy Westrick’s resource room coordinated a food drive, collecting 2,017 pounds of food for the Batesville food pantry.

They learned a valuable lesson as they helped those who are less fortunate and have, therefore, been named The Herald-Tribune’s Classroom of the Month for March.

Westrick explains the project began with an e-mail from Megan Spreckelson, Batesville High School family and consumer sciences teacher, stating the pantry was in dire need of donations.

With the help of counselor Carma Harrison, “we ran the idea past them (the students) and kind of threw out some ideas,” she notes.

Harrison indicates fourth-grade “secret agents” also aided them. These are students “nominated by their teachers. They do a lot of random acts of kindness and community service projects .... but their identities are kept secret all year long until the last day of school.”

The teacher developed a bingo chart with 81 squares. Each space contained the name of a food or toiletry product. As items were brought in, those spaces were marked off. Students in each of the school’s 12 classrooms attempted to collect donations that would create bingos on the board.

“Initially, the class that got the most bingos would get a pizza party,” Harrison reports.

However, later “our principal announced that if everyone (each class) could get a coverall (every space covered), they would have a party for the entire school,” Westrick reveals.

“We had boxes in all the homerooms and the kids went around and collected things each morning. We had a scale and weighed everything .... Our original goal was just to get 800 pounds” of donations.

The educator recalls going to Kroger and seeing “so many students, teachers and parents in there (purchasing items) so they could fill out their chart.”

Collecting over a ton of food is quite an accomplishment and the fifth-grade students recall some of their duties. “We pushed the cart around and got the boxes and brought them back here” to the classroom, says Logan Kain.

Hunter Nobbe reveals, “We helped people get more food so they won’t starve.” Josh Beals announces, “We worked as a team and helped each other bring in some food and cans and boxes.” Shane Nunlist emphasizes, “There were more cans than anything else.”

What were some of the difficulties? Tyler Adams indicates, “Stacking it all up on the stage.” Erica Adams adds, “The hardest thing was picking up the boxes because they were really, really full.”