Lincoln School students with some of the cereal boxes they collected. (Photo courtesy Patti Caira)
Hundreds of boxes cascaded down in an exciting sequence in the third year of Cereal Dominoes at the Lincoln School recently.
Earlier in the year, students in grades K-4 learned about food insecurity through the book Maddi’s Fridge. This spring, they collected and brought in 480 boxes of cold cereal (a new record) to benefit the St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry of Lincoln and Weston after teachers put out the call and even created a QR code so parents could order cereal and have it shipped directly to the food pantry.
The cereal boxes ready to topple. (Photo courtesy Patti Caira)
Teachers piled up the boxes in classrooms and the kids used their math skills by adding up how many boxes were being collected by each class. On the big day (with help from some parents), teacher Nicole McDonagh coordinated the task of lining up the hundreds of boxes in a circuitous route in the gym. Scattered among them were several giant-size display boxes that substitute teacher Patti Caira borrowed from Market Basket.
As the kids watched, the first box was tipped over, and down they all went (see video). The kids cheered excitedly, and at least one of then shouted, “That’s the box I donated!” according to kindergarten teacher Rachel Goldner.
Caira, who also volunteers at the food pantry, got the idea to bring the event to Lincoln after seeing something similar on TV several years ago. She tracked down the two teachers from Michigan who appeared on the program and reached out to them for advice.
Teachers Patty Caira, Rachel Goldner, and Nicole McDonagh in front of the cereal box dominoes. (Photo courtesy Patti Caira)
“It’s made such a difference at the food pantry. They’re now set through fall for cereal,” Caira said, noting that clients’ children don’t get meals at school over summer break, “and a bowl of cereal is a treat for breakfast and lunch.”
This is not the first public project the school has organized. One group did a coin drive to raise $414 for the World Wildlife Fund. “You should have seen the bank when we came in with all those coins,” said Principal Sarah Collmer.
Other efforts such as composting and donating unopened prepackaged food such as applesauce container to Food Link have been a great success — cafeteria trash went from 22 barrels to just two barrels over a period of time, said McDonagh, who is also one of the school’s Green Team leads.
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