Auten Road Intermediate School fifth grade teams 5J (homerooms of Diane Lyons and Carrie Sanchez) and 5K (Beth Raff’s and Mindi Andreski’s homerooms) participated in their second annual Soup-er Bowl competition.
The teams vied to collect the most cans of soup to donate to the Hillsborough Township Food Pantry.
Within the two-week contest, the lesson of charity really sank in with the students. A 5K Broncos family chose to contribute more than 100 cans. A boy from the Team 5J Panthers shoveled snow in his neighborhood to raise money to buy 40 cans of soup.
Another Panther family was moved that their son spent his saved money on the drive, and they helped by contributing 200 cans.
The 5J and 5K families came through in an amazing fashion, gathering 2,155 cans of soup for charity. Board of Education member Dana Boguszewski said at Monday’s board meeting that she was “so proud of the children” for their efforts.
The ARIS Soup-er Bowl victors were Team 5J Panthers, but all students embraced the life lesson of giving back to the community.