LI schools help feed those in need
Students from William E. DeLuca Jr. Elementary School in the North Babylon school district created a "human food chain" to pass along items for the pantry at nearby St. Paul's Reformed Church. Credit: North Babylon School District
Long Island students collected food and funds to help families in need have a special Thanksgiving.
In North Babylon, students from William E. DeLuca Jr. Elementary School competed throughout the month of October to see which class could collect the most nonperishable food, bringing in a total of about 1,500 items. The children formed a “human food chain” outside the school to pass along the donated items to a nearby pantry at St. Paul’s Reformed Church, school officials said.
“DeLuca’s human food chain is one of our favorite traditions,” said Vincent Fantauzzi, the school’s principal. “It is a great way for our students to be directly involved in giving back to those members of our local community that are in need.”
In Greenlawn, students and staff at Thomas J. Lahey Elementary School donated enough nonperishable food items to fill nearly 30 boxes for local families in need through a schoolwide drive held in partnership with the Harborfields Alliance for Community Outreach. The school’s fourth-graders sorted and packaged the items and taped handwritten holiday messages to each box.
Frank J. Carasiti Elementary School in Rocky Point hosted a weeklong drive focused solely on snacks, such as cookies, chips and crackers, for families in need. The initiative, which was coordinated by the school’s Holiday Help Committee, saw students and staff donate enough items to fill a large bin to the brim.
In Dix Hills, various student groups at Half Hollow Hills High School East teamed up to collect more than 2,000 items for local families — including stuffing, canned vegetables and cornbread mix — through the Gerald J. Ryan Outreach Center in Wyandanch.
COUNTYWIDE
‘Ready, Set, Cook’
Hunter Rignola, a student in the Remsenburg-Speonk school district, works with special education teacher Salvatore Guastella to create a leaf art animal at Eastern Suffolk BOCES' Westhampton Beach Learning Center. Credit: Eastern Suffolk BOCES
Three three-member teams from Eastern Suffolk BOCES’ Edward J. Milliken Technical Center in Oakdale and Western Suffolk BOCES’ Wilson Technical Center in Dix Hills took the top three spots in this year’s “Ready, Set, Cook” High School Competition coordinated by the American Culinary Federation’s Long Island chapter.
Students on the winning teams received individual scholarships to the Culinary Institute of New York at Monroe College in the amounts of $28,000, $20,000 and $16,000 for first, second and third place, respectively. The teams’ placements will not be announced until the chapter’s award gala in March.
The teams were asked to prepare a whole chicken, a vegetable and a carbohydrate in one hour, federation officials said. They were judged based on organization, sanitation, utilization of ingredients, creativity, flavor and texture.
COUNTYWIDE
Math scholars
Students at Oldfield Middle School in Greenlawn, in the Harborfields school district, banded together and filled 18 boxes with items for soldiers overseas, ranging from nonperishable food to hygiene products, as part of a program called Operation Ziploc. Credit: Harborfields School District
Eighty-five students have been named Long Island Young Scholars of Mathematics by the Institute of Creative Problem Solving for Gifted and Talented Students at SUNY Old Westbury. Selection means they are in the top one-tenth of 1 percent of math students in the grade across the Island.
Suffolk County scholars and their school districts are: Hugo Kapon, Bridgehampton; Ishana Chadha, Commack; Stacy Vilca, Connetquot; Davin Li, Elwood; Julia Fitlin, Benjamin Goldfried, Michael Han, Nicholas Han, Dylan Keskinyan, Ryan Peskin and Niyanth Ponnusamy, Half Hollow Hills; Michael Considine and Nicole Feibel, Harborfields; Brandon Cardamone, Sri Sagiraju and Emma Vasilakopoulos, Hauppauge; Jackson Stollmack, Huntington; Camden Burk, Ty D’Amico, James Posillico and Isabella Vozza, Northport-East Northport; Anja Minty and Mika Misawa, Shoreham-Wading River; Dylan Shen, Smithtown; Thomas Baranowski, South Huntington; Alexander Huang, Kevin Shi and Eric Zhong, Three Village; John Carlo and Justin Jastrzebski, West Babylon; and Lola Anderson, Westhampton Beach.
Other local students selected are Kevin Hsu of Long Island School for the Gifted in South Huntington and Andrea Wilson, a home-schooled student in Huntington.
Michael R. Ebert is an education researcher and has worked for Newsday in various capacities since 2003. He was part of an 11-person team named as 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalists for investigative coverage of the LIRR's platform safety issues.
