JERSEY SHORE, Pa. — Six fourth graders at Jersey Shore Elementary School helped make a huge donation to The New Love Center in town. The kids collected more than 4,000 boxes of macaroni and cheese and cans of soup to give to the organization that helps feed those in need.
"It just makes me really happy to know that we know that we are helping some people that need it," said fourth grader Molly Dalton.
"So impressed and proud when they came to me and said, 'Could we start a food drive project?' And we partnered with the Love Center, and it just took off from there," said Jersey Shore Elementary Principal Adrienne Johnston.
The girls had the idea to make a food donation after learning about passion projects in class.
"We did this thing in Mrs. Dolan-Ward's room about this food drive thing, and I wanted to do that, so me and Ava went over to the girls and asked them to help," said fourth grader Sophia Wrench.
"We talked about it in the hall, and we used a lot of our recess time to do this," said fourth grader Ava Knipe.
"It has been really fun. Like I know that I am helping other people, and also, I can hang out with my friends," said fourth grader Amelia Thomas.
The girls encouraged their classmates and other grades at the elementary school to pitch in.
"We made posters around the school so people could bring in more low-sodium soup and macaroni," said fourth grader Abby Immel.
"The whole school saw it, and they just started donating things," said fourth grader Zoe Lehman.
Crossroads Church and Lingles, a grocery store, heard about what the kids were doing and decided to help with the donation.
"When we reached out to Lingles to see what kind of prices we could get, they gave us a great price and then matched what we were able to do. So at the end of the day, it ended up being 4,000 boxes of macaroni and cheese," said Jamie Bailey of Crossroads Church.
The girls tell Newswatch 16 that they will continue looking for ways to help others in their community.