‘SOUPER’ EFFORT
Visitation BVM students collect canned goods for Patrician Society
The students at Visitation BVM school in Trooper earnestly took on the challenge of a food collection drive, and now the Patrician Society’s pantry is brimming over with the fruits of their labor.
The school’s maintenance crew delivered the canned goods to the Patrician Society in Norristown Saturday.
“It’s just unbelievable how the kids stepped up to do this. We were flabbergasted,” said Lee-Ann Rooney, executive director of the Patrician Society. “We had a list on our website of all the items we needed and they just went to town on collecting everything.”
Food insecurity is still as great as it was at the start of the pandemic, Rooney added.
“Sadly, the numbers are the same and it’s not declining. But this will keep us stocked for some time.”
Matt Joram, principal of Visitation BVM, credited the students for coming up with the idea and then following through with it.
“For Catholic Schools Week our student council was trying to think of different activities to do and they came up with the idea of collecting cans for the Patrician Society,” he said. “We’ve had food drives in the past but they really wanted to make this one a big success. So we decided to do a kind of March Madness tournament and the homerooms competed against one another to see who would collect the most cans.”
The winning homeroom, 2B (grade 2, section B) won a “dress down day,” with casual attire being permitted in lieu of the customary school uniforms, and a pizza party.
Second place winners, 6B, won a “dress down day.”
A total of 10,390 cans were collected, as well as $1,250.
“Some of the parents really took this under too and put it on their social media accounts and got some of their friends and family to donate cans as well, and some gave cash donations instead of canned goods. It was all donated to the Patrician Society,” Joram explained.
“It was a massive amount of cans. I think the kids had a goal of 4,000 or 5,000, so this clearly went way over what they were expecting. I was super proud of the students, especially the student council, because it was completely their idea.”
To keep the excitement going, updates were announced on the loudspeaker every day, he added.
“They announced how many
cans each homeroom was collecting, and updates were sent to all the families on how many cans were collected,” said Joram, who added that the students’ inspiration seemed to stem from a few sources.
“I think it was a combination of knowing so many people are in need in our community … and a little bit of healthy competition goes a long way too,” he said.
Student Council Vice President Cole Cowan, an 8th-grader, noted: “It was fun and all, but the biggest part is that we are helping people that need it the most.”
Student Council President Shane Sperduto, an 8th-grader, added, “We never had this kind of turn out before and we never expected this kind of a result.”
"It was a massive amount of cans. I think the kids had a goal of 4,000 or 5,000, so this clearly went way over what they were expecting. I was super proud of the students, especially the student council, because it was completely their idea.”
— Matt Joram, principal of Visitation BVM