Ritenour families and staff again showed the giving spirit of the holiday season, donating 9,653 Items of food during the district’s annual food drive.
Ritenour Middle School kept its tradition of leading the district in donations, collecting more than 2,665 food items.
The Overland Public Works Department picked up the food from Ritenour schools on Monday, Nov. 20 and delivered them to the Ritenour Co-Care Food Pantry, located at the Ritenour Husky Support Center, 9303 Midland Blvd. The unique food pantry, which offers a grocery store shopping experience, provides free fresh, frozen foods and shelf-stable items to more than 1,800 Ritenour families who experience food insecurity each month.
Donations from other Ritenour schools included:
- Buder Elementary: 625 items
- Iveland Elementary: 925 items
- Kratz Elementary: 572 items
- Marion Elementary: 924 items
- Marvin Elementary: 1,000 items
- Wyland Elementary students and staff collected 851 food items to be donated directly to their families.
- Hoech Middle School: 941 items
- Ritenour High School: 1,000 items
- The Ritenour School for Early Childhood Education donated nearly 150 items
The district’s annual food drive for Ritenour Co-Care started back in 1982 when Ritenour Middle School teacher Ken Crowder started the collection as a class project. That year, the district collected 2,000. Although Crowder has since retired from the district, he continues to be fully vested in the project as a board member of Ritenour Co-Care Food Pantry and president of the Overland Neighborhood Preservation Commission.
