Winchendon Weekly News school newsletter - Wednesday, December 21

MHS Classes Collaborate in Personal Hygiene Product Drive

by Inanna Arthen
The Murdock High School Leadership and Citizen Class, led by teacher Candace Frye, held a drive this fall to collect personal hygiene products for children in foster care and other persons in need. They collected several boxes of travel-sized products such as shampoo and toothpaste to distribute. Mrs. Ellis' Life Skills ALL class pitched in to help sort the products and pack them into some 85 individual bags.

The Courier visited the combined classes on Thursday, December 22 to learn more. The classes were holding a holiday party and working on crafts projects, including building gingerbread houses with graham crackers and assorted candy. The room was bustling with cheerful activity.

Danielle Sroczynski, a student in Mrs. Frye's class, explained that the classes worked on this project last year as well. "We collected a ton of hygiene supplies and bags, to make bags for kids in the foster care system...who are homeless, just help them get basic things that they need that they might not have access to," she said. "So we tried to collect like a lot of little travel size things so we can make bags and have everything fit." Full sized containers of product would be put in the food pantry at Murdock High School, where students can access things they need.

The bags will be delivered to the Department of Children and Families (DCF) office in Leominster, Ms. Sroczynski said. "I know that they wanted hygiene supplies because it's something you can't really get in food pantries, and it's very necessary, especially for people growing up, like teenagers, to have access to stuff like that. So that's pretty much what we do."

The Life Skills class came in after the products had been collected, Ms. Sroczynski explained. "Once we had the bags, we came in here, we started everything and we counted everything to get a rough idea of how many bags we could make. And they helped a lot with the counting especially and then they put together some of the bags."

Mrs. Ellis, Lead Teacher for the Life Skills Program, said cheerfully, "We're still all new at this. This is the second year that these two classes have worked together to do the hygiene drive." The students in the Life Skills class change every year, with some repeating the class and some moving on, so their participation depends on who is in the class. Students start the class in 9th grade and can stay in the class until they turn 22.

"Mrs. Frye and her Leadership class, they were the ones who came up with the idea of the hygiene drive," Mrs. Ellis said. "Anytime we do anything that requires collecting and assembling and sorting, you know, my students will assist with those things. Our job is to get them ready for the real world. So anything I can use that is like a job skill. So counting things, collecting them, doing inventories, assembling them are all pre-vocational skills. So that's why we offer to assist with this. So it's a combination of job skills as well as social skills because they have to work together with students in other classes."

Students in the Life Skills classes go in different directions when they leave it, Mrs. Ellis explained. They may go into day programs, stay home with their family or get jobs. There are local and state programs that can help the students and their families.

Caden Keeney, a student in the Life Skills class, told the Courier that they filled 85 bags with hygiene products and that he was enjoying the gingerbread house project. "I love my teacher," he said, adding, "Christmas spirit."

Life Skills student John Russell said he enjoyed doing projects like the hygiene product collection. "It helps the community, like, really helps," he said.

The students and teachers all stopped what they were doing to gather for a group photo, with the boxes full of bagged supplies at their feet. They could certainly start their holiday break with a feeling of accomplishment, and, as Caden said, "Christmas spirit."

Student and teachers from the Leadership and Citizenship Class and the Life Skills class with their trove of hygiene products.
Photo by Inanna Arthen

MWCC Awarded ARPA Grant to Address Food Security for College Students

Student Adiana Buzzell (left) and Brewer Center Director Shelley Errington Nicholson at the Gardner campus student pantry.
Photo courtesy of MWCC

GARDNER, MA - December 13, 2022 – Mount Wachusett Community College was awarded the Massachusetts Community College Campus Hunger-Free Program grant funded through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) for $178,535 to support the MWCC initiative "Addressing Food Security and Expanding Basic Needs Services."

The Addressing Food Security and Expanding Basic Needs Services project is designed to address the basic needs of students through unifying and scaling services to meet demands, particularly food security. The project will involve four components: the creation of a full-time Basic Needs Specialist role; leveraging community partnerships to support food security; the purchase of refrigerated lockers for the Leominster campus pantry and associated software to expand hours of food pantry pick-up and improve student usage tracking; and the promotion of resources to high need populations.

"Studies show that food insecurity affects academic achievement," notes Shelley Errington Nicholson, Director of the MWCC Brewer Center for Civic Learning and Community Engagement (Brewer Center). "Resources like our campus pantry play a role in student success; students who utilize our campus food pantry stay in college at a higher rate than the general population of students."

Managed by the Brewer Center, the Food For Thought Pantry at MWCC was launched in Gardner in 2017 following a basic needs survey of MWCC students. The study showed that 37% of respondents were food insecure, with 46% of racially marginalized students and 48% of Pell Grant recipient students being deemed food insecure. MWCC aims to increase the number of students served by the campus food pantries by 500% by June 2024.

"As our mission states, we believe access to education transforms lives," notes MWCC President James Vander Hooven. "Limited access to basic needs such as food, housing, and childcare interrupts students' abilities to succeed academically. This grant will help us to grow and enhance the work we do to address food security needs of our students as they pursue their education."

The Basic Needs Specialist role will be a full-time position tasked with the oversight of both the Leominster and Gardner food pantries, the coordination of volunteers, assistance with SNAP benefits, referrals to other resources, and the development of internal and external partnerships, including the Worcester County Food Bank, Growing Places, Inc., and the MWCC Greenhouse, to ensure the needs of MWCC students are met.

The refrigerated locker system and software, to be installed at the newly renovated Leominster campus, will enable students to place food orders digitally, and enable for pick-up of the orders from the lockers anytime the campus is open, even outside of food pantry hours. Additionally, the refrigeration allows for the food pantry to offer vital perishable goods such as eggs, milk and produce, which have not previously been available.

About the Brewer Center
The Senator Stephen M. Brewer Center for Civic Learning and Community Engagement promotes positive social change and healthier, more vibrant communities through innovative programming and partnerships that benefit our community and Mount Wachusett Community College. The Brewer Center oversees the Food for Thought Campus Pantries, the Students Serving Our Students (SOS) peer-to-peer support program, internships, externships, volunteerism, service learning, and civic engagement, in addition to engaging the Mount community in dialogues around challenging topics.