March is food shelf month in Minnesota, with the statewide FoodShare campaign urging people to donate food and money to help restock shelves that have become bare after holiday season giving. During the March campaign, contributions are matched dollar for dollar or pound of food donated.

 

Students at Clearwater Elementary School are among many in the area that answered the request for donations, raising 535 pounds of food and $20 in cash for the Clearwater/Clear Lake Area Food Shelf.

 

Tables in the school’s hallway were overflowing with boxes, bottles and cans of non-perishable food collected during the first week in March. Clearview’s student council sponsored the food drive.

 

Students brought their donated items to their teachers, and each morning members of the student council went to each classroom to collect them. The class that brought in the most items won an ice cream float party.

 

“For a week at nine o’clock in the morning we’d get a big cart from the janitor and go from class to class and gather the food,” said Andrea G. 

 

“The classes counted their items and at the end of the week we got it all weighed,” said Dillen A. “On the last day when we were done we boxed it all up for the food shelf. We also helped their volunteers load up all the boxes to their vehicles.”

 

Getting students involved with the community and helping others is an important part of the curriculum at Clearview.

 

“Clearview likes to help the community a lot,” said Miles W. “We do things like Jump Rope for Heart to raise money for the American Heart Association and Pennies for Patients to raise money for kids with leukemia.”

 

The students explained they held the food drive in March because it’s also food-matching month.

 

One in 10 Minnesotans don’t have enough food to eat on a regular basis. The Minnesota FoodShare Campaign is the only statewide effort where every dollar goes directly to food shelves to purchase food for the hungry. In 2017, over eight million dollars and 4.7 million pounds of food were raised by Minnesota food shelves and Minnesota FoodShare. 

 

The Clearwater/Clear Lake food shelf is located in the Lions Community Building at 1100 CR 75, Clearwater. Their hours are Mondays 5:30 to 7 p.m., Tuesdays 9 to 11 a.m. and 6 to 8 p.m., and Wednesdays 3 to 5 p.m.