Remembering others on this Thanksgiving

M-W middle school students donate enough food items to create 400 baskets for needy families CENTRAL VALLEY — A good-natured contest between the four houses at Monroe-Woodbury Middle School helped 400 needy families have a special meal on Thanksgiving. Students collected hundreds of pounds of food to make baskets for those facing hard times and having difficulty buying food for their holiday meals. “We’re trying to give back to the community,” said Akshani Patel, president of the school’s student council. “If we can help the community in some way, the school feels like it’s doing a good deed.” The school’s red, blue, yellow and green houses are vying to win a trophy recognizing the house which collected the greatest amount of food. “Once we made it into a competition, a lot more food has been coming in,” said Jamie Struhar, student council treasurer, as the officers showed a visitor a room stuffed with boxes of all kinds of boxed and canned goods. A separate room held donated produce items. The four student officers coincidentally each represent one of the four houses. Their allegiance was apparent when asked who would win, with shouts of: “Red … blue … yellow … green” filling the room. Rumor has it that the trophy will feature a turkey wearing a T-shirt featuring the color of the winning house. - Nancy Kriz