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Ralph McCall school recently collected 2,038 kilograms of food for the Airdrie Food Bank.

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School donates 2 tonnes to food bank

Students from Ralph McCall School donated 2,038 kilograms of food on Feb. 14 to the Airdrie Food Bank as part of the G.E.A.R. project, a partnership between Rocky View Schools and the food bank.

Every month a school involved in the G.E.A.R. project, which stands for gathering edibles for Airdrie residents, runs a food drive.

“(Ralph McCall students) did an outstanding event,” said Sue Methuen, an executive assistant at Airdrie Food Bank.

She added the food collected by Ralph McCall School translates to $11,209 worth of food.

Robert Saipe, a teacher at the school and a member of the Culture Committee that helped organize the four-week long food drive, said the students were celebrating the virtue of caring when they decided to focus on raising food for families in need in the area.

“We wanted to surpass the 2,000 kg mark,” Saipe said, “It came right to the last day but we did it.”

This is the fourth year Ralph McCall has participated in the G.E.A.R project and Saipe said it is becoming something of an annual tradition.

“(The G.E.A.R. project) is important because we get a lot of food at Christmas but we need it all year round,” Methuen said of the slow down in donations at this time of year.

“It all goes to an Airdrie family which is important to us,” Saipe said.

Saipe had two main groups of students that he said really made a difference in making the food drive a success.

The Peer Supporters is comprised of the middle school grades and Saipe said they provided a lot of the leg work for the drive, transporting the food from the classrooms to the main collection area. The second group Saipe credits is the Leadership students in grades 6 through 8 that made the collection a constant presence in the school and encouraged classrooms to collect more than others in a healthy competition.

“We wanted to help our kids realize it’s not all just about marks,” Saipe said. “We want our kids to become caring, kind individuals.”