The Cambridge School’s annual cereal drive held last week will benefit the South Brunswick Food Pantry.
By: Marisa Maldonado
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and more needy children in South Brunswick will be able to partake, thanks to the efforts of the Cambridge School community.
The school collected 168 boxes of cereal during a cereal drive last week, which has been an annual event for the last three years. The cereal drive has become a reliable source of food for the South Brunswick Food Pantry, said LouAnne Wolf, township director of social services.
"It’s always successful, and something we know is going to come again," Ms. Wolf said.
Cereal is a versatile food that students can prepare on their own, Cambridge nurse Dawn Guidice said, making it a good food to have available for needy children.
"Cereal is easy for kids to handle," school nurse Dawn Guidice said. "They can have it for breakfast, for snack or lunch."
Some fifth-graders at Cambridge helped by counting donations, which also included 10 boxes of Parmalat milk, and advertising the food drive over the loudspeaker. Some of the students had expressed disappointment that the school did not collect the 200 boxes for which it had aimed, Ms. Guidice said.
"But I (said), ‘Look at all the cereal we did collect,’" she said. "The food pantry is still 168 boxes ahead of the game."
Donations from schools often taper off as summer approaches and schools sponsor fewer food drives, Ms. Wolf said. But some recent community efforts are keeping the pantry stocked. A drive sponsored by local post offices resulted in the donation of two vans full of food, she said, and the pantry also works with the township summer recreation program to sponsor food drives.
Residents can drop off food at the South Brunswick Public Library and South Brunswick Community Center, where permanent bins are located.
Cambridge School does multiple projects benefiting the pantry each year, Ms. Guidice said, including a food drive around the holiday season. Recently the school raised $168 for the pantry through a bake sale.
"It was a lot of money, for everything being a quarter," Ms. Guidice said.