Gulfport School District collected peanut butter for the March of Mayors Food Drive

The Gulfport School District collected over two tons of peanut butter for the March of the Mayors Food Drive.

Over the last month, Gulfport High School participated in a district wide food drive helping contribute to March of the Mayors. Each Coast city is assigned a food commonly used to restock local food pantries. In Gulfport, that food was peanut butter.

Gulfport High School teachers gave incentives to students to encourage them to give back. English teacher Shanna Batson said, “The clubs decided that it was a great way to give service hours to the students.”

Bringing one jar of peanut butter gained a student two hours toward their service learning goal. 11^th grade Student Ambassador Bernadette Brockman said, “Different teachers would tell kids if they brought in certain amount of jars, they would get a donut party.”

The friendly competition between classrooms, administrators, and staff led to the school district reaching their peanut butter goal.

Gulfport High School has collected over 50 jars of peanut butter; however, the entire school district has collected over 4,000. Student leaders found a way to make it trendy. “Friends love to hang out together. So, if we’re always hanging out then we’ll be like well let’s stop by Walmart and let’s go pick up some peanut butter.”

There’s also a lesson to be learned. “Peanut butter is really expensive,” said Brockman. “I didn’t expect it to be so expensive.”

“Them getting to go to the store and buy peanut butter makes them aware of how much just one item of food can cost.”

Friday at the Lyman Community Center, Extra Table will divide the total number of goods collected and distribute them to each of Extra Table’s coastal food pantries.