Coweta County Schools responded to shortages at the Coweta Food Pantry by raising more than ever before for the annual Coweta County Can-A-Thon.

Coweta County students and teachers raised an estimated 266,850 cans, boxes and bags of food, or cash equivalents to the annual food drive.  It was a record for the school system and, combined with generous contributions from elsewhere in the community, the schools’ contributions helped replenish the Pantry’s shelves.

All Coweta County schools held drives and donated to help the Newnan Junior Service League restock the Coweta County food pantry.  School system operations employees spent Monday and Tuesday after Thanksgiving loading the crates and bags of food piled in school cafeterias and media centers.

Newnan High School prevailed this year in the annual, friendly competition among the schools to raise the most for the food drive.  Newnan High students – led by the school’s SGA - gathered up 37,000 items.  East Coweta raised 24,510 items and Northgate raised 13,451. Northgate’s Air Force JROTC led this year’s effort among the high schools by raising over 2,600 items in an early drive before Thanksgiving.

Lee Middle School was last year’s top school during the annual food drive in 2008, and very nearly topped the drive this year.  The middle school raised 34,011 items this year, followed closely by Smokey Road Middle school’s 33,001 items.

Lee Middle School’s Heaberlin said that Coweta’s schools have engaged “in a friendly competition to outdo each other” during the annual Can-A-Thon for years.  That competition has grown as the county has grown – and as the competition between middle and high schools has grown more intense.

In 1993, when Heaberlin was an assistant principal at Newnan High School, “Arnall Middle School beat us out by raising 5,100 cans, and Newnan High had raised 5,000.  And we were the top schools! Now our students are competing with tens of thousands of items, so the schools have really stepped up.”

“Its fun, and our students and teachers really get behind it,” said Heaberlin. “I know there are kids here who rake leaves or do chores and donate the money to the Food Pantry. Our teachers get into it and have competitions between grades and classes and teams. It’s a great competition, and our community wins. This is probably the number one thing our schools do in terms of giving back to the community.”

Several other schools have seen a strong spirit of giving as Thanksgiving approaches, particularly considering the Coweta Food Pantry has reported shortages during the difficult economic times.

Smokey Road’s 33,001 cans raised was the highest total donated in the school’s history, with the effort led by SGA students and SGA sponsors Matt Hauert, Karla Wilson, and Janice Chestnut. The school’s 8th grade raised the most and donated 3,413 cans, with 1,852 of those cans coming from teacher Shawn Atkinson’s homeroom.  The 7th grade raised 1,195 cans, with teacher Wanda Pettaway’s homeroom raising the most cans, and the 6th grade raised 892 cans, with teacher Clay Hildebrand’s homeroom raising the most cans. 

At East Coweta Middle, 12-year-old student Cody Phillips took it upon himself to go around his Senoia neighborhood every night and collect cans from his neighbors.  He brought in over 150 cans by himself.  He told me that he felt fortunate and that this was something he could do on his own to help others.  Another student - Morgan Goree – donated brought in over $60 from her recent birthday that she was saving to buy something for herself, and encouraged other students to do the same. 

Jefferson Parkway Elementary brought in the highest number of cans for the smaller elementary schools – 10,964, only barely out-raising Canongate Elementary’s 10,060 cans. 

“We made it a competition between the classrooms and grade levels. We also had three administrative teams competing against one another. The students and teachers just kept giving and giving,” said Jefferson Parkway Principal Sean Dye.

At Poplar Road Elementary, teachers held a “pre-can-a-thon” in late October to get the drive started, and staff teams competed and raised nearly 1,500 food items (the winners received Jeans Passes”). That load was taken to the Food Pantry early.  Since then, students at the Poplar Road have brought in an additional 2,500 food items or cash equivalents (classes also competed, and winners get to attend a “Generosity Jam” celebration dance with the principal Lesley Goodwin and assistant principals.

Newnan Crossing promised an ice cream party to the two classes in the school which collected the most cans.  The school’s PTO made a display on the wall using trains to symbolize each classroom and the trains were moved to show how many cans each class collected, so students had a running tally.  Newnan Crossing’s student council and PTO parents assisted in gathering the cans from the classrooms and boxing the items.

At Arbor Springs Elementary School, teachers adopted a “Can-struction” theme to encourage giving.  Each class adopted a name, like “Fogle’s Forklifts”, “Travis’s Tractors”, “Donaldson’s Drywallers”, “Normans’ Nailers”, “Brinkleys’ Bulldozers” and “Shaw’s Saws.”  The school put up a huge bulletin board in the front hall using construction cones standing for every 10 cans collected by each class.

“And the kids are really interested, really excited, and really bringing in the food,” said Arbor Springs Principal Patti Falk.  “We have only 460 kids this year due to the re-districting, and we’ve already exceeded last year’s total when we had almost 700!  They’ve done great!”

Atkinson Elementary School Principal Melissa Wimbish said that her school received two anonymous donations – of $100 and $1, 000 – during their drive, and one second grade boy donated $100 of his birthday money.  “He wanted hungry people to have food before he bought presents for himself,” she said.

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