Students in Daniel Axford Elementary’s Leadership council got together in the beginning of November and brainstormed on what they could do to help the community – what action could they take?

Since the holiday season was upon them, they decided to start a food drive for Oxford/Orion FISH.

“We meet monthly,” said Courtney Morin, DA International Baccalaureate (IB) coordinator. “One of our goals in IB is to be helpful in our communities and then to put that into action.”

DA Spanish Teacher Katelyn Lutz said Leadership students used their communication skills to spread the word throughout the school. “Combined they went to each classroom in the school and gave their presentations for the food drive.

They even had a competition between classrooms. In each grade, the classrooms who brought in the most food items received extra time on their recess. Lutz said Mrs. Francis’ Developmental kindergarten class brought in 136 food items, and will get extra recess. Mrs. Schulte’s kindergarten class brought in 80 items and will have extra recess, as will Mrs. Leenstra’s 1st grade class (232 items) and Mrs. Phillips’ 3rd grade class (157 items). — Don Rush