Golden Apple: Bemidji Middle School Contributes to ‘Stuff-A-Truck’ Campaign

The Bemidji Community Food Shelf’s 33rd annual “Stuff-a-Truck” campaign has officially come to an end as Wednesday. The campaign accepted donations of food and/or cash from members of the community, and local area schools also contributed in a major way.

“Stuff-A-Truck” is a community-wide effort to raise funds and generate food for the food shelf before the winter season.

“The schools collect donations in the classroom,” explained Michael Olson, Executive Director at the Bemidji Community Food Shelf. “We hope that kids are able to participate in the program. Maybe there’s some discussion about hunger. We know that hunger is so pervasive in our community. So the program does a couple things: brings awareness, and then it also generates some food that we’re able to give away.”

Bemidji Middle School always gets involved with the campaign but makes things a bit more interesting with a competition between the classes.

“We kind of have this school challenge where we try to see which pod, which is kind of just classes where you get divvied up into, and we try and see which pod can raise the most money and food for the “Stuff-A-Truck,'” said Millie, a seventh grader at Bemidji Middle School.

The campaign provided a list of essential items needed at the food shelf that were worth more points overall, which is what one of the students decided to focus on.

“We did bonus items, so [we] would get a certain item that the food shelf needs a lot of, and we donate that, and it’s worth double, triple or quadruple the points,” said Lillie, an eighth grader at Bemidji Middle School.

Others decided that it was better to prioritize bringing in cash.

“I have mostly brought in money because 50 cents equals one item, so I thought that was the most easy way to bring items in,” Lillie stated.

When the truck arrived to pick up the donations, the drivers couldn’t believe that students had brought in just over 10,000 items, along with raising an additional $3,300.

“I am so incredibly proud of them,” said Amanda Stade, Bemidji Middle Schools Student Council Advisor. “We put a lot of time and energy into this activity and it’s kind of the biggest community service project Student Council does during the year. They’re awesome and I love the way our school community works together to help our community at large.”

“Seventh grade won in general. Usually sixth graders win, but this year they only got second for the grade, and eighth grade did the worst; they always do the worst, it’s always the same,” added Lillie with a laugh.

Gamma Pod came in first place in terms of overall donations within Bemidji Middle School, contributing close to 2,800 items. Delta Pod came in second with just over 1,800 items, and Beta Pod came in third with just under 1,400 food donations.