Lenihan students focus on food insecurity
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Food insecurity in Marshalltown has increased in the last year, and students at Lenihan Intermediate have taken notice.
Principal Kyle Young said the Ricochet student leadership group determined relieving food insecurity is the service they want to support. Teachers Julie Finch, Lauren Batterson and Diane Simpson let the students develop the project, and steered them in the right direction when necessary.
"They wanted to support both the Emergency Food Box and the Lenihan Food Pantry mainly because they know that these resources get used frequently in the community," he said. "While not an annual project, this is frequently a project that our students want to support as they recognize the need and it's an easy way to get a lot of students involved."
Last week, from Monday through Thursday, students collected more than 500 pounds of food. Young said students who brought an item for the drive were entered into a drawing for a turkey, and two winners were selected on Thursday.
"We've seen an uptick in use of the Lenihan food pantry recently and we recognize that as the cost of food rises, the need to support our community becomes greater," he said. "It's great to get our kids involved in this kind of work early and often so that they can recognize the value of supporting their neighbors and creating a stronger sense of community."
Lego League
Another group of Lenihan students, the Pasta la Vista, Baby . . . In a Box Lego League, are also tackling food insecurity by constructing a little food pantry. They decided on Oct. 17 this was the issue to tackle. The theme chosen this year is "Masterpiece," which focuses on solving a real-world problem throughout the utilization of the arts and technology.
XLP Facilitator Vanessa Engel said students selected food insecurity as the problem to solve and created the solution on their own.
"Food Insecurity was a top choice after students took a little time to research," she said. "We had several students research some of the major issues around the world. Food scarcity came up. Then students took a closer look at how much this impacts us locally with their independent research."
The research informed the League approximately nine percent of the Marshalltown population are food insecure, and 60 percent of Marshalltown Community School District students receive free or reduced lunches.
"Students were asked to make a list of hobbies and potential problems to solve using those hobbies," Engel said.
She said the students have done a lot of background research into building the pantry, and into the demographics and needs in Marshalltown.
"We have taken a field trip to the Iowa State University Extension Office here in Marshalltown and talked with Amy Pieper and Chelsea Llewellyn about local food scarcity, how people qualify, or not qualify, for various services and about the basic design of their Little Food Boxes that they were willing to share," she said. "We also went to the Food Bank of Iowa in Des Moines to learn more about the distribution, types of services, rules regarding food donations, food rescues and basic economics."
Students are in the process of scheduling a weekend to build the pantry with parent volunteers. They will paint and make adjustments to the pantry from the original design shared by the Extension office.
"Right now, we have a miniature prototype to go along with the students' presentation just in case they do not have the full sized version available," Engel said.
Where the pantry will be placed has not yet been determined. One location under consideration is on Summit Street between 19th and 20th streets, and another is closer to Woodbury Elementary. Engel said there is one food box on the northside of town near Summit Street and Ninth Avenue. The possibility of the League adopting the pantry is being considered.
In the project, Engel said students are in the process of using Sign Up Genius to organize and request food donations. They are researching how to create a QR code to connect to the donation list, and are using tools to create social media advertisements. They are also designing a coloring book, which will contain the QR code, to place inside the food pantry to entertain young patrons.
Students are also establishing some rules for the pantry. When it is placed, there will not be a rule restricting people on the number of items they can take. However, there will be a rule stating expired items should not be donated.
"Students are still working on potential rules," Engel said. "They are using the philosophy that the Food Box of Iowa used -- 'If you are in need, we are here to help.' They still have a few things to discuss in this area."
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Contact Lana Bradstream
at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or
lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.