Oak Hill 6th Graders Organize Food Drive to Help Local Families

In early February, a group of three sixth grade students approached the administration of our Monmouth County private school to propose a way to reach out to the local community. Aanya P., Adella J. and Hannah P. wanted to organize a food drive at Oak Hill Academy that would benefit Fulfill of Monmouth & Ocean Counties, formally the Food Bank of Monmouth & Ocean Counties. After two weeks of making posters and getting the word out, they were able to collect over 2,300 pounds of food. Below the three girls from our NJ Private School share some of their experiences of how they were able to make an impact on their local community.

Aanya:

When you think of world hunger, you probably think about small countries that are poor on the other side of the world. But sometimes we forget that people are suffering in our own community. After I heard these tragic stories about kids my age and even younger than me that are suffering from hunger, it made me feel bad. Lots of people are having trouble finding jobs during these hard times. As a result, they are unable to provide basic needs for their families such as food. That’s why Adella, Hannah, and I started a food drive. We collected food for a little more than two weeks. My family and I kept all the food we got in our house until the day of the drop-off. At our Monmouth County Private School, we read an essay we wrote about our food drive to all the students and teachers. On March 9, we had everyone in our school dress down and bring in a food item. Our food drive was a huge success, and we helped lots of family’s lives. We collected about 2,300 lbs. of food! This food drive meant a lot to me. It made me feel like I was making a difference in my community. I have always donated food to food banks, but being able to experience what it was like to go to a food bank and deliver all the food felt amazing. It was fun to advertise our cause and collect the food. This has been a totally new experience for me, and I loved every second of it. This food drive has led me to think that my friends and I will definitely have another one. Remember, that we can all make a difference in our community!

Adella:

I thought this was important because my mom showed me an article. This article is about a girl who was on her zoom call for school. The girl started crying during the class. The teacher asked what’s wrong and the girl was hungry. It’s so sad, how people have to deal with hunger every day. The process came to me from my friends and me talking about the girl in the article. We were saying how sad it is and how we should plan a food drive. We told our parents about it and they said to email the Oak Hill Academy about it. We did and they said we can. So we made posters to spread the information about a dress down day that took place on March 9th. After we made the posters, we hung them up all around the school. Also on the day before the dress down day we made an essay to read to the school.

Did you know that 2.5 million people (⅓ of the world) have to deal with hunger? That’s a lot of people! Some facts are that 690 million people go home with an empty stomach. Some countries dealing with this badly are Chad, Thailand, Brazil etc. On the bright side, a lot of food drives like Action Against Hunger, Feeding America, etc. are helping with hunger. 

One amazing organization is Fulfill. Fulfill is a food drive where the government donates too. When we went to donate the food they had boxes of food and I just think it’s amazing how many people want to help! Well I got 300 cans in total, with my friends we got 600 cans. It was about 2,300 pounds. I felt amazing when we did this because I felt like I was making a difference.

Hannah: 

As a sixth grader during these tragic times, it’s important to help out our community best we can. My mom read me a depressing story of a starved third grader who was so hungry she cried and said she hadn’t had anything to eat in days on a Zoom class. I felt so bad and decided I would do anything to help someone in need. I thought most kids lived like I do, but they don’t, and we don’t always realize that. When my mom finished reading us the article, I told her that I definitely wanted to do something to help. My mom sent the article to some friends and texted some parents that I wanted to do a food drive, and some friends responded with a positive response. We collected food from our neighborhood and extracurricular activities, but we wanted to do more. We contacted our NJ Private School, and when they said yes, we were overjoyed. Oak Hill said to make posters, so we got together and made some posters together. Later, we made a speech to give over the loudspeaker to inform everyone about our own dress down day. On March 9, we donated food to Fulfill of Monmouth & Ocean County and donated some of the food. We gathered a lot of food, which exceeded our thoughts. We’re just kids, and if we were able to do this, you are too.

We collected a total of about 2,300 pounds of food and we were able to feed so many families. Thank you to everyone who donated to our cause. We hope that all of those families in need are doing better now. It felt so good to finally make a difference.