BRUNSWICK

Students at Coffin School this month collected 1,914 items, including food and personal care supplies, for the Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program.

The annual food drive is organized by the Community for Coffin parent-teachercommunity group.

“I was blown away by the support of the classes,” said Community for Coffin copresident Charity Kaiser, noting that the food drive aligns with the group’s goal to foster a sense of community in the school.

Tahnthawan Coffin, the parent volunteer who organized this year’s drive, said it was a “shock to see how successful it’s been.”

Classes at Coffin competed to collect the most items with the hopes of winning 20 extra minutes of gym time during the first week of school when they come back from winter vacation.

Coffin School physical education instructor Tracey Peck-Moad said the extra gym time wound up being “a big incentive” for the kids.

The winning class wound up being Barbara Burgess’s kindergarten class, which collected 257 items.

Asked why they felt so motivated to help others in need, James Jackman, 6, a member of Burgess’s class, exclaimed: “For our city! To help other people stay alive more.”

The food drive started Dec. 8 and lasted two weeks.

“We had a ton of food,” Burgess said. “They were motivated every day.”

Second-grader Kris Ellis, helped collect food from different classes at Coffin during the food drive.

Burgess and Peck-Moad noted that the food drive wound up being a community effort. At the end of food drive, two truck-loads full of items were on the way to MCHPP on Friday.

Kaiser noted that supporting the program is reciprocal, because some students directly benefit from MCHPP’s backpack program.

“They do so much to help the kids here,” she said.

The backpack program supplies kids in the greater- Brunswick area and their families with food and nutrition to help stave off hunger for the weekends.

According to its website, “MCHPP purchases food at wholesale costs from Good Shepherd Food Bank. MCHPP receives the bulk food purchases weekly, and with volunteer support packages the items in re-sealable bags. Again, with volunteer support these bags are delivered to area elementary schools. The schools send the bags home in the backpacks of students they have identified as having a severe need. The process is very discreet at the school level.”

Among those volunteers are members of Coastal Rotary, which has been helping to raise funds and awareness of the program, according to Rotarian John Dennen.

Coastal Rotary, whose members volunteer collecting food and packing meals for the program, recently raised $2,000 for the program, an amount that was matched by a donation from Tontine Mall landlord Daniel Catlin.

At Dennen’s suggestion, Catlin made the donation in the name of his tenants — which includes Dennen and his wife — at Tontine this year.

Dennen and Catlin said they want to encourage other business leaders in the Brunswick area to contribute to the program. Their ultimate goal, they said, is to see the program’s $50,000 cost offset by local businesses.

About 280 children in the local area benefit from the backpack program, according to Coastal Rotary.

For more information on Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program, including the backpack program, go to www.mchpp.org.