Published Thursday, December 03, 2009

Coweta schools raise 266,850 items for Can-A-Thon

The Coweta County School System responded to shortages at the Coweta Community Food Pantry by raising an estimated 266,850 cans for the 26th annual Can-A-Thon food drive sponsored by the Newnan Junior Service League.

The event wrapped up Tuesday with a 2009 total of 362,894 in canned goods and cash equivalents. Financial contributions were calculated at four cans per dollar.

It was a record for Coweta's public school system and, combined with generous contributions from elsewhere in the community, the schools' contributions helped replenish the pantry's shelves. The pantry is housed with One Roof ecumenical outreach at the old Playtex plant on Temple Avenue.

All schools held drives and donated to help the Newnan Junior Service League restock the community food pantry, notes Dean Jackson, school system spokesman.

School system operations employees spent the Monday and Tuesday after Thanksgiving loading the crates and bags of food piled in school cafeterias and media centers.

Newnan High School prevailed this year in the annual, friendly competition among the schools to raise the most for the food drive. Newnan High students gathered 37,000 items. East Coweta raised 24,510 items and Northgate raised 13,451. Northgate's Air Force JROTC led this year's effort among the high schools by raising more than 2,600 items in an early drive before Thanksgiving.

Lee Middle School raised 34,011 items this year, followed closely by Smokey Road Middle school's 33,001 items.

Lee Middle School Principal Bob Heaberlin said that Coweta's schools have engaged "in a friendly competition to outdo each other" during the annual Can-A-Thon for years.

In 1993, when Heaberlin was an assistant principal at Newnan High School, "Arnall Middle School beat us out by raising 5,100 cans, and Newnan High had raised 5,000. And we were the top schools! Now our students are competing with tens of thousands of items, so the schools have really stepped up."

Several other schools exhibited a strong spirit of giving as Thanksgiving approached, particularly considering the food pantry's shortages during the difficult economic times this year.

Smokey Road's 33,001 cans was the highest total donated in the school's history, with the effort led by SGA students and SGA sponsors Matt Hauert, Karla Wilson, and Janice Chestnut. The school's eighth grade raised the most and donated 3,413 cans, with 1,852 of those cans coming from teacher Shawn Atkinson's homeroom. The seventh grade raised 1,195 cans, with teacher Wanda Pettaway's homeroom raising the most cans, and the sixth grade raised 892 cans, with teacher Clay Hildebrand's homeroom raising the most cans.

At East Coweta Middle, 12-year-old student Cody Phillips went around his Senoia neighborhood every night and collected cans from his neighbors. He brought in more than 150 cans by himself. Another student, Morgan Goree, brought in more than $60 from her recent birthday that she was saving to buy something for herself, and encouraged other students to do the same.

Jefferson Parkway Elementary brought in the highest number of cans for the smaller elementary schools -- 10,964, only barely out-raising Canongate Elementary's 10,060 cans.

"We made it a competition between the classrooms and grade levels. We also had three administrative teams competing against one another. The students and teachers just kept giving and giving," said Principal Sean Dye.

At Poplar Road Elementary, teachers held a "pre-Can-A-Thon" in late October to get the drive started, and staff teams competed and raised nearly 1,500 food items (the winners received "Jeans Passes"). That load was taken to the food pantry early. Since then, students at Poplar Road collected an additional 2,500 food items or cash equivalents. Classes also competed, and winners got to attend a "Generosity Jam" celebration dance with Principal Lesley Goodwin and assistant principals.

Newnan Crossing promised an ice cream party to the two classes collecting the most cans. The PTO made a wall display using trains to symbolize each classroom and the trains were moved to show how many cans each class collected, so students had a running tally. Newnan Crossing's student council and PTO parents assisted in gathering the cans from the classrooms and boxing the items.

At Arbor Springs, teachers adopted a "Can-struction" theme to encourage giving. Each class adopted names like "Fogle's Forklifts," "Travis' Tractors," "Donaldson's Drywallers," "Normans' Nailers," "Brinkleys' Bulldozers" and "Shaw's Saws." The school put up a huge bulletin board in the front hall using construction cones standing for every 10 cans collected by each class.

"And the kids are really interested, really excited, and really bringing in the food," said Arbor Springs Principal Patti Falk. "We have only 460 kids this year due to the redistricting, and we've already exceeded last year's total, when we had almost 700! They've done great."

Atkinson Principal Melissa Wimbish said her school received two anonymous donations -- of $100 and $1,000 -- during their drive, and one second grade boy donated $100 of his birthday money.

"He wanted hungry people to have food before he bought presents for himself," she said.