ORANGE TOWNSHIP — Mapleton Elementary students gathered outside the school on Friday morning to watch 483 boxes of cereal fall like dominos.
The cereal boxes were lined up in a single line in front of the school, and they were set up and pushed over three times. The kids’ excitement grew each time.
Mapleton Elementary students brought in 483 cereal boxes for local cable and internet company Armstrong’s Avenge Hunger campaign.
“We picked cereal because I’ve seen schools do this before and the kids would get really into it, so we just made it a fun challenge,” Mapleton Elementary Principal Cassie Swanson said.
The idea came from the fifth grade student council, which is made up of eight students.
“We all worked together, and that’s what our word of the month is: teamwork,” student council member Marley Gaus said. “It feels really good to be a good person and help everybody eat.”
Swanson said the kindergarten-through-fifth graders collected cereal for a week and a half.
“We just wanted to do something to support [Armstrong] because they come out and support us,” Swanson said.
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Armstrong employees visit the school for Earth Day and Christmas events, and they usually show up in costume. For the cereal domino, Office and Community Marketing Manager Sandy Burkholder came dressed as a box of cereal.
All year long, Armstrong accepts non-perishable food donations at its office, located at 1215 Claremont Ave., for an initiative it calls “Breaking Bread.”
The donated food is then sent to food banks and church groups to be distributed to those in need of food assistance.
But during the end of August to the beginning of October, Armstrong runs Avenge Hunger as a push to get as many donations as possible.
Burkholder said the company has raised roughly 50,000 pounds of food already, but not quite met its goal of 60,000 pounds.
Swanson said she had no idea how many boxes of cereal the students would bring in, but after seeing it was a success, she would be interested to run the cereal drive again next year.