Weiser Middle School participates in ‘Souper Bowl of Caring

In honor of Super Bowl week, students and staff at Weiser Middle School annually participate in a nationwide fundraiser known as the “Souper Bowl of Caring.”
 For the 16th year, Weiser Middle School, led by teacher Deena Hall and her homeroom, has participated in this national effort to fight hunger in the local community, collecting and donating a total of 4,379 canned/boxed food items for Love INC and over $4,379 for ROSE Advocates.
 The Souper Bowl of Caring is a national service project done each year during the Super Bowl week. The organization encourages youth from around the country to raise funds and gather donations for local charities to fight hunger.
 With the idea that while much of the country celebrates with large amounts of food for Super Bowl Sunday, others in their community go hungry. Since the project began in the early 1990s, over $145 million in food and money donations have been collected to fight hunger in the USA.  
 While the national program has encouraged a large amount of giving across the country,  what’s truly great about the Souper Bowl of Caring is that the money and food donated here stays here in the community.
 “I teach social studies and many of the places we cover struggle with poverty and food insecurity. While we can’t reach all of the hungry in the world, we can make a difference for those in need in our own community. That is the thing I really love about the Souper Bowl of Caring program,” Hall said.
 “National totals are compiled so students can see just how big of a movement they are involved in, yet those we give to are right here. They are not faceless individuals. They are our neighbors, our classmates, and for many of our kids their family members.”
 Hall, who teaches eighth grade at Weiser Middle School joined the efforts of the national project 16 years ago with the goal of all students and staff members at WMS donating $1 or a canned food item. This year that meant the school goal was 450 donations.
 This year the students were challenged by Hall’s homeroom with a skit reminding the students to cheer each other on as they tackled hunger, promising brownie sundaes to the home-room with the most donations.
 The homerooms collected donations in their homeroom classes the week prior to the NFL Super Bowl.  Besides collecting donations, students also participated in a daily hunger trivia challenge based on hunger facts that were posted around the school by Marie Thomas eighth grade homeroom.
 As the final donations were counted, Hall’s eighth grade homeroom ended the week with the most donations, earning the title Souper Bowl champions this year by single handedly exceeded the school goal with a record breaking 1,702 food and money donations.
 Hall pointed out that several of the homerooms showed outstanding generosity with six of the homerooms bringing in over 300 donations. As a result of the school-wide effort, WMS was able to celebrate their largest donation year ever smashing the previous record from 2014.
 Hall attributes the success to the supportive staff at WMS.  Many of the homeroom teachers encourage their homerooms to set goals beyond the $1/1can challenge.  This year one teacher told her students she would flip a coin and either double or triple the amount of donations they brought in through a monetary donation – they landed on the triple option.  
 Another made a deal with her students to match all monetary donations up to $100.  Another told her students that if they reached 100 food items, that she would take them on a little trip down the street to pick up donations her parents had set aside for the event.  They earned the trip and were able to more than double their donation totals.
 “Without the support and encouragement of the homeroom teachers at WMS, this community service project would not be what it is today,” Hall said.
 Over the past 16 years of participation, Weiser Middle School has donated over 33,424 food items and $7,981.66 to local charities.
 Hall would also like to give special recognition to the Indianhead 4-H club led by Nicol Mink. They once again volunteered their time on Saturday to sort, organize, box, and transport all of the food donations from Weiser Middle School to Love INC.