Valley Parents: Mascoma, Lebanon and Windsor high schoolers came together to feed the hungry

CANAAN — Mascoma, Lebanon and Windsor Interact Rotary Clubs high school students came together in late April to do their small but important part of feeding the world’s hungry, one meal at a time.

For close to two hours, the roughly 40 students prepared and packaged meals at Mascoma Valley Regional High School that organization Rise Against Hunger will ship to developing countries.

The students manned different stations and as music played. Some filled small bags with freeze-dried ingredients while others weighed, sealed, labeled and finally boxed the bags.

One bag was the equivalent of six meals, and a box of 36 bags is enough to feed a child for one year.

“We are excited to bring Rise Against Hunger back this year and add Windsor to the mix,” said Lindsey Coolidge, a Spanish teacher at Mascoma and Interact co-adviser with Jessica Vivian, referring to the same project in 2022 with Lebanon Interact. “It is really a great opportunity, I think, for our students here to give back to those who live in a different environment.”

Mascoma has close to 40 students in its Interact club, Windsor has 16 and Lebanon has seven. Christian McDonald is in her first year as the Lebanon Interact adviser.

Adeline Josephson, a Mascoma junior and president of the school’s Interact Club, said joining was an obvious choice for her.

“I like to help make a difference, and I think one of the best ways to do that is internationally, outside our community,” said Josephson, who joined Interact as a freshman and at the Rise Again Event was using a heat sealer to close the bags. “I like giving back to my community and working with other schools. I think it is important to be able to do that. This is very eye-opening to learn what it is like in other places, and it is helping us want to do more things like this.”

Membership in Interact at Mascoma has grown steadily over the last several years, with students signing up at the beginning of the school year as they choose clubs they want to join, Josephson said. Mascoma Interact has done community trash cleanup projects and works the concession stand at high school sports contests and serve as ushers at plays.

Interact Rotary Clubs, open to youths ages 12 to 18, coordinate service projects with their local Rotary Club or develop their own projects. Windsor Interact was started four years ago by Kim Gogan, the club’s adviser and the coordinator in Windsor for Work-Based Learning & Flexible Pathways at the high school.

Just three or four students signed up the first few years, Gogan said, but this year the club has grown to 16. Students have volunteered with Windsor Rotary Club members on a few projects, including helping to serve a community dinner at Trinity Church, assisting with painting the elementary school bus area, working with former police chief Jennifer Frank for a “Stuff the Cruiser” food drive and shopping and wrapping presents for two children chosen from the Mount Ascutney Hospital Giving Tree tags. While there are projects in collaboration with Windsor Rotary, the students take on their own community service ideas, Gogan said. One of those was a fundraiser selling tickets for the Kennedy Pond “ice out.”

“We encourage them to come up with their own projects and learn how to give back and be a leader,” Gogan said.

Hudson Ranney, a Windsor High School senior, said he joined Interact when Gogan recruited him as a freshman when she started the club.

“I agree with the (Rotary) motto: ‘Service above self,’ ” Ranney said, taking a break from packaging meals. “It has really been rewarding, and I am glad I have done it.”

Ranney said with cuts coming in federal funding, Interact is planning to raise money to continue the meals program that provides lunch to kids over the summer.

Of the $4,500 raised to buy the food for the Rise Against Hunger event, half came from Lebanon Rotary and the rest raised by the Interact clubs, Gogan said, adding that some of the money will go to other Rise Against Hunger projects such as access to clean water.

“The money all goes toward addressing food insecurity,” Gogan said.

The Rise Against Hunger event had an assembly line-like process that began at one end of the gym, where Paxten Roberts and Aidan Hemmerling, both Mascoma juniors, were opening 50 pound bags of rice, 25 pound bags of soy and boxes of mixed vegetables and emptying the contents into large bins. Other students carried full bins to one of five tables where five or six students filled small plastic bags then weighed them individually. After one student slipped a bag under a funnel, three others poured a spoonful of mixed vegetables, a vitamin packet and a cup each of rice and soy down the chute. The bags were passed along and weighed (maximum of 3.9 grams) then placed in another set of small bins and brought to a third table lined with a dozen heat sealers manned by students and Rotarians.

Once sealed, students behind the sealers placed small labels on each bag, tossed them into a bin and handed them off to the last table. There, students placed 36 bags in each box, taped it shut and placed it on a pallet. A box of bags is enough to feed a child for an entire year.

Each time the tally reached another 1,000 meals, Bill Maniscalco, of Rise Against Hunger, made an announcement and had someone bang a gong as they moved toward their goal of more than 10,000 meals.

Maniscalco, who works at Rise Against Hunger’s regional office in Canton, Mass., said they will collect meals from around New England until they have 285,120, the exact amount needed to fill a 40-foot shipping container. The container will sail from New York in either June or July. A container destined for Sierra Leone left on April 29, Maniscalco said.

More than 57 million meals sent to 37 countries were packaged in 2023 at 3,000 events with 331,200 volunteers, according to Rise Against Hunger. RAH, a nonprofit organization that started 26 years ago, has 20 U.S. and five international offices.

Norah Burns, a Lebanon senior, came to Interact three years ago after participating in RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards), where she attended a retreat on leadership and teamwork skills. She also has gone to Italy with Rotary International.

“I love community service and helping others,” said Burns, who will attend the University of Kentucky in the fall, majoring in marketing and finance. “I had heard of Rise Against Hunger but did not know how to join the effort until now. Seeing the impact we are making here today, I am just so glad that I can be involved.”

Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.