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Liberty students give beyond goal
By robert Guttersohn
Liberty
Throughout November, the canned goods and other shelf-stable foods overflowing from tubs at W. S. Guy Middle School’s entrance instilled a sense of pride in the student body.
On Tuesday, the Rescue Mission of the Mahoning Valley retrieved the tubs of food, expecting to carry back 500 items. Instead, they carried away more than 1,224.
“We still haven’t tallied what teachers received today,” student council adviser Elizabeth Kall said Tuesday as students posed for photographs.
“We thought 500 cans would be such a great accomplishment,” said Guy Principal Judd Rubin.
Guy faculty educates a student body where more than half are eligible for free or reduced lunches.
So when the students more than doubled the benchmark figure, Rubin and the faculty members were blown away.
The students say the can drive, which began Nov. 7, taught them that despite hard times, there is always someone worse off.
Student council member Jihad Esmail, 12, a member of the seventh-grade class under Marla Dull that contributed more than a quarter of the items, said his family didn’t have to purchase anything extra from the store for the drive. Instead the 15 items he contributed were unused items from his pantry.
For Mary Fitch and Keasia Wagner, both 12 and members of student council, it was much the same.
“I learned to be thankful for what you have,” said Wagner, whose family donated 45 items. “I threw out more than I thought.”
Student council member Destiney Patterson, 12, said she donated 70 items.
Rubin and Kall said the students’ driving forces were seeing the food tubs filling and the long mural illustrated with 500 cans that student council made and hung in the middle school’s main hallway.
“It really got the kids motivated,” Rubin said.
Each day after class, Kall placed an X over a can in the mural representing another item donated. By Tuesday morning, only a handful were left uncovered for the sole purpose of allowing reporters to see what the graphics looked like without an X, Kall said.
The middle school also took a portion of the food and donated it inwardly by giving 16 Guy families care packages.
“The families were so appreciative,” Rubin said. “It felt so good to have enough to give to others.”
Much as they did for most of November, Guy students stood tall and with heads high Tuesday in front of the food-drive graphic.
“We wanted to teach them that no matter how old they are, they can have an impact on the community,” Kall said.