Students raising money for Heifer International 'Ark'
By Kate Daly Assistant Editor

Mill Pond Intermediate School sixth-grader Sabrina Herstedt packs a box of food for the Westborough Food Pantry with (l to r) Selectman Lydia Goldblatt and Patti Weiner. Each sixth-grader brought a food item to donate to the Food Pantry as ticket into the class meeting at which they discussed the Heifer Read to Feed program. Weiner is a volunteer at Heifer's Outlook Farm in Rutland. Goldblatt talked to the students about community responsibility. KATE DALY

Westborough - One by one, sixth-graders handed over cans of beans, jars of peanut butter, boxes of macaroni and more until the stage at the Mill Pond Intermediate School was lined three and four deep with donations to the Westborough Food Pantry.

The donations were the students' tickets into a class meeting to kick off an unprecedented project.

"Our goal is to try to read until May 1 and see if … the class can raise $10,000," teacher Chris Rogers said. "We're hoping with the three [class] teams we can come close to that."

The entire class of 2,014 is participating in Heifer International's Read to Feed program, asking for pledges based on the amount of reading they do.

The money will pay for two "arks" of animals through Heifer International, a nonprofit organization that provides animals for breeding, food and commerce to struggling communities around the world.

The students have already written letters to grandparents, parents, friends and others to begin the project, said Dennis Fenton, class guidance counselor.

Last year, Rogers's homeroom students raised nearly $5,000 through the program. A parent donated the balance, and the class purchased an ark. That includes two each of cows, sheep, camels, oxen, water buff alo, pigs, goats, donkeys, llamas, bee hives, trios of ducks, trios of rabbits, trios of guinea pigs, flocks of geese and flocks of chickens. Heifer distributes the livestock where it is needed most.

Read to Feed participation grew out of the sixth-grade United Nations program, Rogers said.

"For the past two years on our sixth-grade team, our culminating event has been a United Nations summit where each of the kids portrays a world leader past or present," he said, and discusses worldwide issues including global warning, sustainable development and hunger.

Then they wrote a series of UN-style resolutions.

"The one thing we felt like we could improve on was adding a service element as well, where we could make a real diff erence," Rogers said.

With the success of his single class last year, the sixth-grade teachers decided to make Read to Feed a class project.

"Thank you for all this beautiful food," Henry Lindsay, of the Westborough Food Pantry, told the class. "Right now, we're feeding about 60 families. We started with 10, and it's growing every week."

Selectman Lydia Goldblatt she urged the students to get involved in their community.

"Responsibility is giving back more than you can possibly receive," she said. "Think of the things you can give back to the town that gives us so much."

Patti Weiner, of Hopkinton, also spoke to the class about Heifer. She volunteers at the organization's Overlook Farm in Rutland, which the class will visit. Heifer helps more than eight million families in more than 120 countries, she said.

A gift of 105 rabbits to a small community in China in the 1980s has helped more than 2,200 impoverished families with better nutrition and off spring that provide income, she said.

"These very small gifts can dramatically help people," Weiner said. "Thank you for participating in Read to Feed."

The class will also participate in more local eff orts to fight hunger, Rogers said.