The Student Council at Rhodes Elementary School held a food drive for the month of November, and they worked very hard to organize this event.

“The Student Council chose items for each grade level to bring in based on what the Rhode Island Food Bank is in need of,” said Student Council advisor and special education teacher Melissa Ruggieri.

The students made posters to hang up in school, and the group’s president and vice president created the flyer that was sent home to families. Student Council members visited each classroom to talk about the food drive and the contest.

All items were due on Nov. 27, and at 1:30 p.m. each classroom went into the hallway with their food drive items and built a creative structure with the items.

The structures were judged by Student Council president Harrison Fisher, vice president Braydn Slaughter, secretary Jadalyne Casiano, treasurer Noah DosReis, advisors Ruggieri and Katherine Plumer, Principal Gina Armstrong, teacher assistant Lisa Hardy and Kelly Seigh from the Rhode Island Community Food Bank.

Seigh was impressed with the event.

“This is such a creative idea,” she said. “It’s important for children to learn about giving back to their own community. Currently, we are feeding 53,000 families per month in Rhode Island. Two-thirds of the people we feed are children and seniors.”

The contest was to design the most creative structure. Two winners were chosen – one classroom from grades K-2, and another from grades 3-5.

“The catch is they can only use their food drive items, paper, tape and markers. This is the first time in many years that Rhodes has had a Student Council and we would really love for their hard work on their first food drive to be shared with the community,” Ruggieri said.

Armstrong was impressed with all the student involvement and support of the event. The students collected almost triple their population in food.

“I am extremely proud of my Rhodes students and the newly appointed Rhodes Student Council for taking on this responsibility. We know that meaningful student involvement with decision making improves overall student engagement, and in turn, this will strengthen our Rhodes commitment to community,” she said. “This food drive was successful in this mission. We raised 879 boxes/cans of food for the RI Food Bank, and the pride in the whole building was uplifting. I was astonished by the creativity and hard work that went into each and every classroom structure.”

In a close contest, the two winning classrooms were Ms. Ariel Persia’s Room 18 kindergarten class for their “Table of Thanks” and Mrs. Susan Weber’s fifth-grade Room 5 for their “Canverse” structure.