Students help stock food bank’s shelves

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Some New Hanover County students took time out of their day to help feed hungry families in our area. Myrtle Grove Middle School held its annual Food for Fines collection today. It’s a program that allows students with library book fines to pay the fines by donating non-perishable food items instead of money.

This year, the school wanted to help the homeless population in our area. Students reached out to neighbors, grocery stores and businesses for food donations.

The entire school helped sort the food into different food groups to make sure there was a large selection of donations.

“Kids really became inspired to be a part of the solution to that problem, even kids who didn’t have library fines,” librarian Jennifer LaGarde said. “So it started out as a tiny program that resulted in 6,000 non-perishable food donations coming in, only 30 of which were because of actual library fines. The rest was the generosity of kids.”

The school donated the food items to Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard in Wilmington.