Students from the Sixth Grade Center and Strayer made a positive impact by packing meals for the nonprofit organization “Feed My Starving Children.”
By Gary Weckselblatt
More than 100 Quakertown Community School District middle school students recently packed meals for
“Feed My Starving Children,” a nonprofit organization that coordinates the packaging and distribution of food to people in developing nations.
While the results of their selfless efforts to feed thousands of people are extraordinary, hearing students from the Sixth Grade Center and Strayer Middle School discuss the event at Delaware Valley University may be even more impressive.
“It’s important to help people in need,” said Max Kocher of the SGC, which had 51 members of student council participate in the event. “You hear about the crisis in Ukraine and how people there need to be taken care of and fed. What we did matters.”
Max’s classmate, Savannah Hartzel, said “I wanted to be part of that, helping and making a difference in the world for other people. We can’t let people die of hunger.”
She said student groups “worked as a team. We weren’t yelling at each other. We wanted to be fast enough to see how many children we could feed.” Max agreed. “To be a leader on a service project was really great. It was a huge team effort, and really neat how we could all work together.”
Strayer students were equally impressive with 68 students traveling to DelVal, where tables were set up in a make-shift assembly line. Strayer’s group packed 27 boxes with 36 packages in each box. Each package contains six meals. That’s 5,832 meals packed, courtesy of Strayer’s students. The meals include rice and an assortment of nutritious vegetables
“It was a special day when you can help those in need,” said Talyn Nielsen, whose parents told her how proud they were of her for “making a difference in the world. I’ll always remember it. You can help so many people by doing simple things.”
Talyn, along with Jermaine Jackson and Trae McCray, are part of Strayer’s morning announcements team. Jermaine, who has cousins in Africa, has traveled to see them and spoke of how his mom brings them clothing as a way to help. It wasn’t lost on him that his cousins could benefit from his volunteerism. “What we did will help people less fortunate than us,” Jermaine said. “It makes you feel good to do that.”
Trae, an AAU basketball player, spoke of the homeless people he sees when his team plays in Philadelphia. “It makes me want to help, and that’s what we did by packing those boxes. It was fun and it helps people.”
The effort was arranged by counselors Maureen Cloonan-Greenawalt of Strayer and Lillian LeFevre of the SGC. Both were extremely proud of their students.
“They all rose to the challenge,” Mrs. LeFevre said. “It’s very inspiring. When you pass things like this on to the next generation, that makes a difference. You see the light in their eyes. They did something really important by serving others.”
Mrs. Cloonan-Greenawalt said “I’m just so proud that at this age they’re thinking of other people before themselves. They got to visit a college campus and work together as a team. You hear their conversations and how seriously they were taking this, talking about making a big impact. They’ll remember this forever, and they were having a great time.”
Gary Weckselblatt, QCSD Director of Communications, writes about the people and the programs that impact the Quakertown Community School District. He can be reached at 215-529- 2028 or [email protected].