Rossville Middle School students help pack up their food donations for Rossville Community Ministries to pick up at the school Wednesday. Classrooms competed to collect the most food in the superhero-themed "Souper Thanksgiver" program.When Rossville Middle School students saw that their community included hungry families, they wanted to help.
So the teens and preteens, about 570 of them, donated nearly 2,000 cans of food and nonperishable food items to Rossville Community Ministries, the Rossville area food pantry.
Students gave even though nearly 90 percent of them qualify for free or reduced-price school meals themselves. The school also collected food to supply 18 families with Thanksgiving dinner.
"Some of us have enough food to eat, to keep ourselves full and healthy, but some kids don't, so I felt like it would be good to help," said 12-year-old Christa Brown.
About 33 percent of Rossville residents live in poverty, according to city-data.com.
A lot of those people go to Rossville Community Ministries for help, especially during the holidays when demand for food increases some 25 percent, said Jim Cooper, who purchases food for the food bank.
Every Rossville Middle homeroom teacher prompted students to bring as many canned goods as possible. The homeroom for each grade that brought the most food gets a school ice cream party.
Teachers decorated their doors with turkeys and hung posters of a superhero bursting out of a can with the event theme, "Souper Thanksgiver," to motivate the children to collect.
Assistant Principal Chris Sikes said most students realize a lot of their classmates are in danger of going without food and gifts during the holidays, so they want to make sure that their friends have enough.
Teacher Rick Kernea's homeroom brought in the most canned goods among sixth-graders.
Student Annette Wheeler gasped when she learned her room won first place for the seventh-grade class.
She gave a lot of food she collected to a food drive at her church and figured her class might not do as well as the others.
But students and parents pushed her class to the top. One parent got so involved that she took off work to deliver cans to the school, Annette said.
And teacher Allison Isenberg is consistently among the top donors for the eighth grade. She said she brings candy to class as a motivational tool.
"I bribe them," she said. "I am unashamed."
Contact staff writer Yolanda Putman at yputman@timesfreepress.com or 757-6431.