Cranston schools 'Go Orange' to fight hunger

RHODES ELEMENTARY SCHOOL had its Go Orange day on Oct. 21. Dawn Florenz’s third-grade class had everyone in orange to raise awareness of childhood hunger. (Herald photos by Jen Cowart)

WESTERN HILLS MIDDLE SCHOOL: Alexandra and Elizabeth Cowart pose with the Student Council along with just some of the many food items collected in their drive on Oct. 28.

PETERS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: Faculty, staff, and students were in a sea of orange last Friday.

STONE HILL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: The two second-grade classes at Stone Hill show off their orange last week.

CHESTER BARROWS AND ARAMARK: The lunchroom was a blur of orange on Friday as the students and staff, including Principal Karyn Rosenfield and Aramark employees Brenda Donovan and Patricia Mota, showed off their orange. Shown here are grade two students who were participants in the school’s food drive.

PARK VIEW MIDDLE SCHOOL: Park View was one of four middle schools participating in Go Orange this year. Their drive is part of their Kindness Campaign, which takes place throughout the school year, highlighting and helping different charities and organizations.

DUTEMPLE: The kindergarten students, along with Principal Kim Magnelli, show off their orange.

HUGH B. BAIN: The students at Hugh B. Bain Middle School combined their Go Orange day with their school walkathon day on Friday.

HOPE HIGHLANDS: Participating for the first time as a new middle school, the staff and students at Hope Highlands showed their Go Orange spirit on Friday. Here the student council, along with Principal Alex Kanelos and faculty members Kristen Buonanno and Renee Ahlquist, represent just some of the orange spirit.

ARLINGTON ELEMENTARY: Arlington’s staff and students formed a school-wide Great Pumpkin outside on Friday afternoon.

EDGEWOOD HIGHLAND: Staff and students in grades three, four, and five show off their orange, helping to represent their school community on Monday, Oct. 31.

EDEN PARK: On Monday, Oct. 31, Eden Park Elementary School kicked off its ongoing food drive.

WATCHING IT GROW: Alexandra and Elizabeth Cowart, now sixth- and eighth-graders at Western Hills Middle School, are two of the three sisters who started the Go Orange food drive for CCAP in 2013, and have watched it grow year after year. Here, they pose with some of the food items brought in by the Western Hills staff and students this year.

The Cranston Herald · Thursday, November 3, 2016 3:45 pm

By Jen Cowart

As the weather begins to chill and the holidays approach, the Comprehensive Community Action Program (CCAP) is preparing to fill 1,000 food baskets for the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, according to Lee Beliveau, the organization’s vice president for development and corporate affairs.

With that goal in mind, the organization looks to local food drives to help them fill those baskets with non-perishable food items and gift cards to grocery stores for turkeys for local families to enjoy throughout the holiday season.

This year, the fourth annual “Go Orange” days to benefit the No Kid Hungry initiative had the biggest participation level ever, and will help CCAP to reach the 2016 goal.

Started in 2013 by Caroline, Elizabeth, and Alexandra Cowart as a way to help the hungry families in their own community, the food drive has grown each year it has been in existence. This year, almost two-dozen schools and offices, including the school district’s food service provider Aramark and the Briggs building staff participated, dressing in orange and donating to the drive.

The “Go Orange” days started on Oct. 21 at the individual schools and continued on through Oct. 31 and beyond, working around various school events and picture days and often combining the event with their own school drives running beyond the month of October.

Some schools collected spare change, some collected non-perishable food items, and some did a combination of both, all sporting their colorful orange clothing on the designated days in order to raise awareness of the issue of childhood hunger locally and nationwide.

To date, more than $1,200 has been brought in by this year’s drive, along with hundreds of pounds of food, with the tally increasing each day as the schools each conclude their drives. For more information about CCAP’s holiday food drive collections and the No Kid Hungry drive, tune in to WPRI’s “The Rhode Show” this Thursday morning, Nov. 3. 1