by John Dowd
On Nov. 8, students from Victor KU (preschool) and second grade paired up to visit the food pantry at the Bitterroot Church of the Nazarene, in Victor. There, they learned the importance and impact of food donations for their community. According to KU teacher Kameron Bradley, it had a huge impact on the children, how they saw their community and on the teachers and adults involved.
The program is called the Victor Turkey Brigade, and it has been going on for several years. This was Bradley’s second experience with the event, and it always impresses her. She and other teachers and teacher aides helped organize the kids and their efforts.
Bernice Janssen works with the Victor Food Pantry and did the presentation to the Victor kids that visited Nov. 8. She said that she asked the participants several questions about how the pantry affects the community and the community’s need for the assistance.
“We asked them questions and it was really pretty amazing to hear some of their answers and to see so much compassion at such a young age,” said Janssen.
After the students visited the pantry, they returned and planned how they could give back. The main thing was turkeys, and according to Bradley, her students gave back in a big way. The students created flyers for the community and passed them out, as well as reached out to friends and family. Their goal was to collect as many turkeys as possible, either in physical form or in the form of donations with which to purchase the fowl.
On Nov. 15, the collections were counted, with an impressive 17 turkeys and over $580 in donations, which would eventually grow to over $700 by the end of the week.
“They really worked hard to help the families in their community,” said Bradley. “When we delivered the turkeys they were so excited!” The second graders were even asked to guess before the count, and many of them could not believe the numbers they ended up with, especially factoring in the money. “It was just a big awesome moment for them! It was really sweet,” said Bradley.
Janssen spoke of meeting with the kids during the donations on Nov. 15 and how one child gave her a few pennies to put into the donations. “I almost fell to my knees,” said Janssen, she was so impressed by the generosity.
Janssen said there is a high need in the Victor community and that the pantry functions completely off local donations, so the help from the school every year is extremely appreciated. This year, the pantry gave out 56 turkeys on Monday and Tuesday during their prospective Thanksgiving and school family giveaway events both days. According to Janssen, this year the Victor School event donated substantially more than last year. The children’s efforts ended up helping 19 school families on Tuesday. With the rest of the money the school donated, the pantry was able to do more during Thanksgiving and will for Christmas as well.
“We’ve been very blessed,” said Janssen. “I’m just so thankful to all the teachers, aides and students and what they did.”