Fifth Graders Give Back with Donation to Medfield Food Cupboard

The efforts of two Medfield fifth grade community service groups will help provide goods to 45 families in town, according to Beth Eby, president of the Medfield Food Cupboard.

Girls from the groups "Friends Helping Friends" and "Happy Helping Hands" came together to plan an event to help raise money and goods for the Medfield Food Cupboard. The event was a father-daughter fundraiser dance for fourth and fifth grade girls held at the Dale Street School cafeteria on May 14 and the result was roughly 100 people in attendance and nearly $600 raised as well as groceries received to be donated to the Cupboard. 

"[The girls] really owned the event," said Diane Smith, a parent involved in the Friends Helping Friends group. "They wrote their own morning announcements,  they sold tickets at the lunch table and they hung posters around the school. They brought in door prizes to give at the event."

Smith said the girls raised "very close to $600" at the event and visited the Medfield Food Cupboard on May 20 "to give the money that was raised and stock the shelves with what goods were brought in as donations to the dance."

The girls were led by Eby down to the basement of the Cupboard, where the goods are kept and were instructed how to properly stock the shelves with the goods they brought in. After the girls found the appropriate shelves to place their donated goods, they gathered around Eby as she thanked the two groups and explained the importance of their donations.

"Thank you so much," Eby said. "This money is going to really help me stock that juice shelf and any extra money we will use to buy sunscreen, bug spray and those freeze pops because we try to do those things during the summer months. Please know your money will go to good use."

Eby said the goal is to put a lot on the shelf now so it's available at the Cupboard every time they're open.

"In the summer, we are open every three weeks, not every two weeks," she said. 

Eby emphasized the importance of letting the girls know what all their hard work means to the 45 families in Medfield in need. 

"I am glad you had a wonderful time at your dance but what you did is a great job raising money for us and you're feeding all families in Medfield, they all live in Medfield," She told the groups. "You should feel good about what you've done. When you can help people who really need help, it's a good thing. These are wonderful people, they are either just older o sick or lost their jobs but they are wonderful people. They appreciate everything we do for them."

Friends Helping Friends, according to Smith, is in its fifth year of existence and Happy Helping Hands, a newer group, is in its second year. The purpose of the groups is simple: keep kids involved and active in the community.

"[Parents] wanting to keep kids involved in community service [reason groups were founded]," said Smith. "They've done a lot of things. They held a bake sale to raise money for Jodi's Climb for Hope and we've gone to Natick Organic Farm and helped work there."