Students help fight hunger

Children pack sack lunches for mission

Merryhill School principal Walt Hackford doesn't expect his students to solve the crisis of world hunger alone. But the principal of the Summerlin school's campus was happy to see the school do its part with a project to feed the hungry on World Food Day, Oct. 16.

The whole school contributed to the plan to pack sack lunches for the Las Vegas Rescue Mission.

Kindergartners decorated the sacks with hand-scrawled drawings. First-graders brought in juice boxes. Second-graders donated dried fruit snacks. Third-graders brought in potato chips or crackers. Fourth-graders donated dessert items. Fifth-graders brought in fruit. Then the school's sixth-graders assembled the lunches.

At the end of the school day, volunteer students from the fourth, fifth and sixth grades went to the rescue mission to serve the lunches, tour the facility and help out with chores.

Hackford said the school does food drives every year. But this is the first time they've worked on a directed drive with sack lunches as the goal.

School administrative assistant Tresa Hackford said everyone at Merryhill came out to support the effort.

"The whole school is very generous. When they bring in food or when they adopt a family for Christmas, they always come through," she said.

Throughout October, students studied world food systems and shortages in their classes. They learned about basic nutrition and they discovered that people all over the world don't have the access to the food necessary to maintain health.

Tresa Hackford suspects many of the more affluent students were learning these lessons for the first time.

"I think it's been wonderful. A lot of the kids here don't have a clue," she said. "They think that because they have plenty of food, clothes and toys, everybody does. This way, they get to see the other side of the coin and they don't take what they have for granted."

The administrative assistant said students, parents and teachers are consistently giving. They also showed their generosity with cash donations for former principal Ken Smith.

Smith, now in Florida, has undergone a series of surgeries to treat tumors in his brain.

Though Smith has been away from Merryhill for three years now, many of the fourth, fifth and sixth graders still remember him fondly. Even kindergartners who had never met the man were eager to contribute to the fund in his name.

Even with the school's effort to support Smith, the food drive didn't fall behind.

As they packed each sack lunch, sixth-grade students Derek Kwok and Aaron Valdez said they knew the lunches were going to people in need.

"They're homeless," Kwok said.

"These people may have lost their job. They have nobody to run to, so they have to go to a shelter," Valdez said.

"They don't even have a car, so they do have to go to a homeless shelter," Kwok said. "I hope I'll never be in one."

"He won't be in a shelter. He'll be a baseball player or a football player," Valdez said of his friend.

Principal Hackford said students of all ages were taking lessons away from the sack lunch project.

"It's not about scare tactics. This is an education approach to recognizing hunger," he said. "This is an international movement. It's global. Schools all over the world are studying world hunger. We wanted to participate too. At Merryhill, we try to educate the whole child."


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