Comstock Park — Third-grader Kiera York loves math, so when the opportunity came to count items for the Pine Island food drive, she jumped at the chance.
“I liked counting the food to see how much we have,” Kiera said; she also enjoys public speaking, so she signed up to help with announcements to promote the food drive.
Kiera is a member of the Pine Island Leaders of Tomorrow, students selected by their teacher to help plan activities and provide a student voice to the school. PILOT, which has a student representative from each of Pine Island’s 16 classrooms, organized the schoolwide food drive.
PILOT advisor and third-grade teacher Kristen Keifer suggested the idea of a food drive after the central office had reached out about a need for the CP Families program. CP Families is run by the district and provides local families facing changes with food and clothing.
The students decided to make the drive a competition between grades, Keifer said. The grade that brought in the most food, which was fifth grade this year, received extra recess and a small treat.
The drive ran the first week of December; even with a snow day, they collected more than 800 items, as tallied by PILOT members. Kiera said they collected more food than the school’s first donation drive last year.
While Kiera enjoyed counting and doing the announcements, third-grader Snahalata Sharma said she honed in on her writing skills, something she enjoys, to help with promotional flyers and posters.
“I think it was a good idea to do this around Christmas time,” Snahalata said. “It is good to give to the people who need it.”
Keifer, who leads PILOT with the help of teachers Allie VanSolkema and Casie Meeuwsen and support staff Nicole McKay, said donation drives like this help to teach students about empathy and their community.
“Kids can make a difference and we want them to have an impact on their community,” Keifer said. “This shows that kids can take the lead in something like this and it can be a huge success.”
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