KAUKAUA, Wis. (NBC 26) — An elementary school in Kaukauna has donated more than 700 jars of peanut butter and jelly to St. Joseph's Food Program, an independent food bank that relies on community donations.
New Directions Learning Community, a public charter school in the Kaukauna school district, held a competition between classrooms to spur donations. The winning classroom donated 134 jars and earned coupons for free pizza from Papa Murphy's, Culver's, and McDonald's ice cream cones.
"It makes a big difference not only in the pocketbook too," Scottie Schefe, St. Joseph's operations manager said. "Like typically St. Joe's would be buying it otherwise. So something like this, you can do the math. It's probably a couple bucks a jar on average. And you're doing 500 families a week or something like that."
Parent volunteer Kristin McEneany has been organizing service projects for the students for five years.
"This year we wanted to pick something that was COVID friendly, and that would help out the community," McEneany said. "We really strongly try to find things that the kids can relate to."
She asked staff at St. Joseph's what their biggest need was, and Schefe answered with soup, peanut butter, and jelly.
"Every kid knows what peanut butter and jelly is. They can make that connection," McEneany said. "We try to choose projects that they can understand and are pretty simple and don't require a lot of cost to the families."
"We want students to know that at age four, at age six, at age eight, that they can make a difference," principal Abbey Frischmann said. "That they can make a difference in school, in the community, and in the world."
