162nd Week Update - Miles Neighborhood Food Collection Project

Growing Like A Tree

Slow and steady progress in the second year of

the Miles School One Can A Week program

Each branch on the One Can A Week Tree represents a grade and its success in collecting food for the Community Food Bank. Each leaf accounts for 10 lbs. of donated food.

Rebecca Lipson, the Miles Exploratory Learning Center middle school science teacher told me today—with a huge smile on her face—that their One Can A Week program is running very smoothly and takes very little effort on anyone’s part.

One student or class coordinator collects food from one class and enters the information in the log book. To incorporate as much learning as possible into the process, each class coordinator calculates the number of pounds by reading the labels and adding up the posted weights. Rebecca said many students did not know how many ounces were in a pound, but they sure do now.

Also, she mentioned that the collection, record keeping and calculations highlight real world project management skills. Each class coordinator participates in all aspects of the project so he or she can fully understands what it takes to make something happen.

Last semester, which ended in December, the total donations collected by Rebecca’s class amounted to 937 lbs. of food and $247 in cash.

Imagine if every school in Tucson had its own One Can A Week program. Then imagine the compassionate world those kids would build.



At the end of the school semester, Rebecca sends
all parents an update on the progress of their

One Can A Week program.

  

The log book is where the class coordinator enters the weight
for the food collected and the cash donations.



One Can A Week Jersey Style

No, it did not snow in Tucson. This is a photo of Hannah, Ari Kaplan’s six-year-old daughter collecting food in their New Jersey neighborhood. If you remember, back in late November Ari sent an email to me describing his Sunday One Can A Week adventure with Hannah.

“She is so excited when there is a can waiting (as am I) and was very proud to donate the bags of food that she personally collected. In fact, she often lets me know how much of the work she does -- cutting the notes, writing her name, leaving the notes, writing down the contents, etc. :) I hope we can keep up the momentum over the winter (which was brutal last year).”

Looks like Hannah and her dad would be stiff competition for any mail carrier out there when it comes to those “appointed rounds.”

Still More Important

One Can A Week Folks

Keeping Everyone Healthy

One of our neighbors was sent home from work Sunday because she was coming down with a cold. However, I still wanted a photo of her holding the plate with her husband at her side.

Fortunately, that was the last photo on Miles so I quickly drove to Lenny’s house to pick up the 12th Street donations. After I loaded the car, I asked him if I could wash the plate and my hands. He said yes and assured me he had all kinds of soap and disinfectants in his kitchen. My kind of guy!

A few minutes later, I had no qualms about handing the plate to another neighbor for a photo. Thanks, Lenny.

We collected a total of 180 lbs. of food. The money we donated amounted to $33.50, a $25.00 check and $8.50 in cash.

See you Sunday,

Peter