Students from Harrison Elementary School delivered more than 4,000 items of food to Combined Community Services Thursday. “We’re just honored to be able to serve the community this way,” said Principal Lee Snider. “It’s just another example of living Warsaw Community Schools’ mission statement of ‘enriching the lives of others.’ My appreciation goes to (teacher) Scott Mehlberg for organizing this event and to the students and staff for participating.” For the past two weeks, Mehlberg said the school had a mini-competition between classes to see who could bring in the most food. The competition concluded Nov. 7. Harrison collected 4,200 items for CCS, including monetary donations. A total of $445 in cash was donated. Mehlberg said for each $1 donated, that was considered as two canned food items. Susan Ramsey’s fourth-grade was the top class, bringing in 768 items. In second was Melissa Landwerlen’s sixth-graders with 568 items. “My whole thing is to take care of our community and create a stronger community, no matter their circumstances. That will trickle out to other communities,” Mehlberg explained. Approximately 100 students in the top four classes hand-delivered food items to CCS at 2:30 p.m. Thursday as much as they could. Because of the amount of items collected, the CCS truck and the Harrison utility terrain vehicle transported most of the donation. “I’m proud of the kids. This is something I look forward to each year,” Mehlberg said. “The kids’ hearts are huge, and it’s hard to help at this age but they always go above and beyond.” Each year, he said the school collects around the same amount of food items – 4,000 – which averages out to about seven items per kid.
