100th-Day Celebration All About Giving Back

The 100th day of school may be a moving target this year but at , the celebration has become more about giving back than marking a specific date.

This year, some 30 classes at the school are looking to collect 100 items each for Gifts of Love, an organization that provides food, clothing and other items to people in need throughout the Greater Hartford area, especially the “working poor.”

“We’re just excited our community can come together in such a good cause and the children can see that it’s important to be part of it,” said kindergarten teacher Kelly Theriault.

The students started bringing items to school in mid-January.

By Friday, the boxes that lined a hallway near the school’s gymnasium were nearly overflowing with neatly organized items from each classroom – everything from pasta, to canned goods, to peanut butter to bar soap.

“I like what were doing,” first-grader Delia DiMaio said as she and classmate Holden Vontz brought down some boxes of pasta.

Holden explained the items were going, “into a truck and getting donated.”

That  brand-new Gifts of Love truck will be at the school Wednesday as the organization picks up the items from the school in celebration of the 100th day collection. It may only be the 99th day of school but with this winter weather, few are counting.

What is being counted, however, are the donations.

Some of the teachers are using the drive to make up math lesson games in the classroom and a group of second- and third-graders in the enrichment program collects the data from teachers. Those enrichment students gather daily in the media room at the school to enter classroom tallies into the computer, use special software to create bar graphs and hang them throughout the school.

“They are doing the collection, the tallying and the creation of the weekly graph,” said Pamela Keagan, media specialist and enrichment teacher. “They love that responsibility.”

Charting – and posting – the results involves a little fun too.

“Once we print out [the results] we get to walk along the hallways,” said third-grader Logan Mansur. “It’s pretty fun.”

But Logan also has some understanding of the purpose of the drive as well.

“It makes me feel really happy we can collect things for people who don’t have what we have," Logan said.

The idea for the drive came when many factors and ideas came together.

Chris Napierski, outreach coordinator for Gifts of Love and a parent with kids in the school, began talking with Theriault about ways for the Avon-based organization to work more closely with the school.

They soon met with Principal Andy Robbin and along the way decided to expand upon an idea carried out in second-grade teacher Lisa Nanni’s class last year – a food drive.

“It went over really well and we thought, let’s expand it out,” Napierski said.

From there, teachers organized the drive, noting even small details like giving the younger kids lighter items to collect.

Notices were sent home with kids and some e-mails circulated.

Napierski said it’s amazing to see the neatly lined boxes quickly filling up.

"The support has really been overwhelming,” she said. “To be able to see 100 peanut butters all in one box is awesome.”

She said the timing of the drive is important as well.

“This comes in handy to restock our shelves after the holiday rush,” she said.

The kids were also thrilled with the idea, Theriault said.

“This seemed to be a good fit,” Theriault said. “The children were excited about it.”

For his part, Robbin said the drive works well on so many levels, helping neighbors, making learning fun, incorporating lessons into the drive and teaching kids about giving back.

“I love the fact that we’re helping others in need,” he said.