Woodside Elementary School families and staff members showed compassion for others once again this Thanksgiving season by donating turkey tubs to families in need in Milwaukee’s Notre Dame Middle School community.
For the seventh consecutive year, Woodside students were asked to donate money they earned by doing chores at home. With more than $2,000 collected, 29 family volunteers shopped for groceries to fill the tubs. Items included a frozen turkey, bag of stuffing, jar of gravy, white and sweet potatoes, fresh vegetables, bread, canned cranberries, a fresh pie, beverages, appetizers such as crackers and nuts, along with an aluminum roasting pan. All of the items were put into a large sturdy storage bin and delivered to families.
“This has been an extremely rewarding service project for all the students,” said Rayelle Simonsen, a Woodside teacher who helped organize the collection. “It’s amazing how just doing a few chores around the house feeds 33 families.”
A donation of $217 from funds that remained after the tubs were prepared was donated to Sussex Food Pantry.
Notre Dame is a successful middle school in Milwaukee that serves Hispanic girls in grades 5-8. The school’s academic outcomes includes a 98 percent high school graduation rate with 82 percent of its students continuing on to college. Some 94 percent of the families live at or below poverty level.