Stacking the cans – Elm Street students want to fill their gym floor with food

LACONIA — Here’s a word problem: if the floor of a large room measures 1,674 square feet, and a box of non-perishable food covers 176 square inches, how many boxes of food would it take to fill the room?

Andrea Morin’s fifth grade class has already done the math for you. They know that the answer is 1,380 boxes. Trying to collect that much food, though, is another lesson altogether.

“We’re trying to go with personal learning,” said Morin a 29-year teaching veteran, who has spent most of her career at Elm Street School in Laconia. When she challenged her students to come up with a project that would involve calculating area, they suggested that they could cover the school’s gymnasium floor with canned goods.

“The students had to decide what we could do for the community,” Morin said. All of the non-perishable food will be delivered to the Saint Vincent de Paul Food Pantry. Their goal is to collect the 1,380 boxes of food by Thanksgiving.

In addition to the math, students are learning a good bit of problem solving, Morin said. For example, the students can’t leave a growing pile of canned goods on the gymnasium floor, and it would be unmanageable to have 1,380 boxes stacked up in their classroom waiting for food to arrive, so they have 10 boxes that they are filling up, then recording their progress on a chart, bringing the food to the pantry and returning with the empty boxes.

And they’re learning that even fifth graders can make a significant difference.

The project is being spearheaded by three students: Adam VanPrat, Ryan Greene and Usiah Perez. For two of the boys, local food pantries are something they already knew about.

Greene said he knows what it’s like to have to ask for help.

“You can’t afford food, you don’t really live in a house,” Greene said, referring to a time when he and his family depended on friends to provide temporary housing.

“It’s terrible,” Perez said. At one period in his life, he said he had to be “careful” about how much he ate. “You can’t eat that much because you have to save for the next day, it makes you feel terrible.”

They put the call for donations out last week to the rest of the school, and quickly filled 12 boxes with donations.

“It feels good to help,” said VanPrat. “We still have a long way to go.”

They are welcoming help from outside of the school to fill the remaining 1,368 boxes.

Perez said, “Any canned food or dried food,” would do, though he specifically suggested macaroni and cheese, Jello, rice and pudding. Or they could donate his favorites: Chef Boyardee’s Pizza Maker kit, and, “definitely some peach slices.”

Those who wish to make a monetary donation can make a check out to Elm Street School, with “Cans for a Cause” in the memo line, and bring it to the school, Morin said.

“Help us reach our goal,” said Greene.