Franklin Achieves Record-Breaking Food Drive Through Friendly Competition and Mathematical Challenges
This year, students and staff at Franklin Elementary School broke the school’s record for the most items donated during the annual Mid-Morning Kiwanis Food Drive.
During the week of December 2 through December 6, 2024, the students and staff at Franklin Elementary School competed head-to-head in the yearly Mid-Morning Kiwanis Food Drive.
For the forty-ninth year since its founding, the Mid-Morning Kiwanis Food Drive offered Oshkosh Area School District (OASD) elementary school students the opportunity to donate food items to local individuals and families in need to make a difference in the lives of community members. Each year, every OASD elementary school hosts their own food drive for one week of their choosing between the months of November and December.
As in years past, an item collection box was delivered to every classroom across all grade levels for students, families and staff to donate non-perishable food items ahead of the holiday season. Each of the thirteen classrooms at Franklin Elementary eagerly competed with the others as donated items were collected each morning and counted by the end of the school day.
In what has become a recent tradition for students at Franklin, the food drive also served as a way for students to think critically and put their math skills to the test.
Mrs. Van Elzen, a math instructional support teacher (IST) at Franklin Elementary, not only played a fundamental role in the facilitation of the Franklin food drive, but also aimed to get students excited about math by designing engaging visuals and crafting thought-provoking conversation prompts for classes to discuss related to the donated items.
Each day, Mrs. Van Elzen created bar graphs of the schools’ total donated items - separating each class along the horizontal axis, and identifying and color-coding each day’s total donated items on the graph’s vertical axis. By looking at the graph, students were able to observe their class’ progress and compare their daily and weekly totals to those of other classes around the school.
In each day’s donation report, Mrs. Van Elzen challenged students to analyze the graph and discuss key differences they noticed within the data. Students were asked questions like, “How many donations does your classroom have? Which class has the most donated items? How many more donated items does your class need to have the most? How many donations do we have all together? If we had 1,350 total donations last year, how many more do we need to tie or beat that this year?”
Teachers determined how best to incorporate the math related prompts into their classroom discussions and were able to make the challenge their own. For example, in Mrs. Tyner’s second-grade classroom, students used the palates of donated items to investigate arrays and calculate item totals using rows and columns to practice multiplication concepts.
Having a method to track the donations in real-time, students were motivated to actively participate in the food drive and were excited to see the numbers change each day. The momentum of donations increased exponentially as the week progressed, with 622 items donated during the school day on Friday alone.
Not only were students and teachers enthusiastically participating, other members of staff also tapped into the spirit of giving as well. Both Mrs. Cooper, ESOL* support teacher, and Mr. Cam, school custodian, donated over 60 items each. Their donations were split evenly amongst the thirteen classrooms and added to the school’s cumulative total.
Additional donations were also accepted during the Franklin Elementary School family night on Friday, December 6. At the celebration, families could continue to donate items to each classroom box for the final count to be tabulated on the following Monday.
By the end of the food drive, a total of 1,711 food items were donated by the Franklin school community - breaking last year’s record of 1,350 by an impressive 361 additional items. To add to the excitement, the class competition ended in a tie, crowning the students of Ms. Tyner’s second-grade class and Ms. Wiltzius’ kindergarten class as this year’s Franklin food drive champions. The winning classrooms will receive a special treat and participate in a fun STEM-related activity as a prize.
As a way to give thanks to all elementary school students around Oshkosh for their efforts in the food drive, Mid-Morning Kiwanis continued their annual sponsorship of a special magic show - with Franklin being one of this year’s lucky recipients. On Wednesday, December 11, students were entertained by the magical talents of local magician and volunteer, Bruce Dumann, and had the opportunity to assist with the tricks.
The donated items were collected that same morning by Kiwanis volunteers. The items will be weighed and donated to the Salvation Army to be distributed to those in need before the holidays.
“The students, staff and entire Franklin school family showed so much excitement during this food drive and through their donations, demonstrated our school belief that every person can help others to feel valued and respected. I am so proud of all Franklin students who showcased their overwhelming support for our community and our school,” said Kathryn Noble, principal at Franklin Elementary.
We extend our sincere appreciation to the Franklin Falcons - as well as all Oshkosh Area School District students, staff, families and friends - who participated in this food drive and other charitable events leading up to winter break. Our community becomes so much stronger when we all work together and combine our efforts to help fellow community members in need.
*English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL)