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Kids stock shelves
Youngsters learn the value of giving
By jeanne starmack
girard
Inside the Emmanuel Center on Wednesday morning, empty shelves were getting full with the anticipation that during the Thanksgiving holiday, stomachs will be kept full as well.
Back and forth, 13 special-needs students from Girard Intermediate School carried boxes full of canned corn, green beans, stuffing mix, canned milk, yams, pumpkin pie filling and fruit cocktail.
They plucked cans from the boxes and stacked them carefully on the shelves.
“The reason why our pantry is so full now is because Girard Intermediate School and Prospect Elementary had a big food drive for us,” said Sister Jean Orsuto, executive director of the center, a community-outreach agency at 2 N. State St.
The food was delivered Tuesday. “It was like Christmas here yesterday,” Sister Orsuto said.
The center, which is part of Humility of Mary Housing, gives clothes, food and household goods to people who need those items year-round, and it also helps people who are at risk of becoming homeless find housing.
It will provide food baskets for 375 pre-registered families next week that will include not only food, but $10 gift certificates toward turkeys at Santisi’s IGA on State Street.
On Monday, eighth-graders from St. Rose School will fill bags for those families.
But Wednesday was the GIS students’ day to contribute. And that contribution, said their intervention teacher, Robin Durkin, is not only a help to the community but an important lesson as well.
“I want them to feel like they’ve accomplished something,” she said, dodging out of the way as they worked.
“And they’ll be proud,” she added.
Marshell Moore, 12, agreed.
“I think it was actually fun to give people my help, and I thank my teacher for bringing us here,” she said.
“It was fun and very helpful, added Calvin Tedrow, 12, who acknowledged it was good to know the group was helping people who don’t have as much as they do.
It took the students about 45 minutes to finish their work, but the need for donations is neverending, said Sister Orsuto.
The center accepts clothing and food donations all year and is providing toys for 400 children this Christmas, she said. Christmas trees with name tags are set up in churches and some businesses throughout Girard, she said. The center also will accept donations of new toys from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, and from 9 a.m. to noon Fridays.