"There are a lot of people out there with not enough money to buy food," Fred Lavallee, a Gerry's Food Pantry volunteer, told an assembly of Saint Elizabeth Seton School students a few days before Thanksgiving.

Lavallee had come to the school with his truck to pick up food items that had been collected by students over the previous week, and he was both astonished and delighted by the outcome.

"In the years I have been doing this, I have never seen so much," he said, before placing a call to Gerry's Pantry for assistance in transporting the cans and boxes of food to the pantry shelves in the Community Center.

"We aspire to be contributing members of the community," said fifth grade teacher Ann MacGregor, who, along with fellow teacher Tim Farrington, headed up the food drive.

In some friendly inter-class competition to collect the most food items, MacGregor's fifth graders narrowly came out on top with 230 cans and packets out of a school total in excess of 1,250 items.

Helping to organize the effort were Student Council President Meghan Gregoire, Vice President Leina Hoover, Treasurer Nick MacGregor, Secretary Clarice Jones, eighth grade reps Chris Williams and Abbi Diamant, seventh grade reps Ali Ford, Lindsey Richardson, Thomas Cullen and Katie Siede, sixth grade reps Makaela Gilbert, Stephen Currier, Richard Scahill and Jessica Gero, and fifth grade reps Jamie Steinbach and Chris Pelletier.