Students Work To Help Food Banks

ROCK HILL – Students at Sullivan Middle School are working to make a difference, and it all begins with their junior Civitans organization.

“Junior Civitans is a national organization that we help with community service,” says seventh grader Graham.  “We also help a lot with around the school. We also do a lot of the incentives and the canned food drive, as you can see right there.”

The goal for this years canned food drive was to raise thousands of cans to donate to food banks and shelters in the area. This year they did just that, collecting 5,500 cans! The home room that collected the most cans brought in over 900.

They got to celebrate with a special pancake party, put on by the schools home economics class and the Junior Civitans.

Principal, Dr. Jaqueline Persinski, is proud of her student’s efforts the help others.

“They’re such a great group of kids who have such big hearts, and they work so hard to inspire others to give back to the community and to be kind to others and I’m so proud of them. They are just amazing, amazing kids.”

Dr. Persinski tells WCCB’s Emma Mondo that the can collection started in November. Students say they were a bit nervous about hitting their goal from the beginning.

“When we were, like, going around to collect cans, not a lot of people had cans,” says seventh grader Nyla, “but eventually everyone picked up their way and donated cans to the better causes.”

While 1500 cans have already been donated, the rest are still being boxed and prepped for shelters. These young hometown heroes are proud of themselves for the work they put in.

“I like helping with the community, and I like helping everybody around me. So, especially with me joining this club, it’s really been a huge help with new students and the canned food drive,” says Graham.

Nyla says, “I’m just happy that i get to help other people want to help other people in the world so that, um, everyone gets like a share and we can always help people.”