Draper Elementary fifth-grade student body officers recently organized a schoolwide food drive benefiting the Utah Food Bank, collecting nine barrels of food.

“It was close to one ton,” said teacher Jennifer Asay, who serves as the SBO adviser.

As they planned the drive, the student leaders learned about food insecurity in their community.

“Food is scarce, so people can use more support,” said fifth-grader Andrew Meadows. 

Classmate Isla Erskine added, “Some kids don’t have a meal; they only have the littlest bit of bread.”

While fifth-grader June Jefferies knows a lot of schools have pantries to help students and their families, the need is still there.

“We learned one in five children are hungry and schools can even use help stocking their shelves,” she said.

To make the drive successful, SBOs promoted it through morning announcements and made and distributed fliers.

Fifth-grader Piper Middleton said they also held a friendly competition between grades to get more students involved.

“We did that because everyone loves competitions,” Isla explained.

The fifth-grade student leaders, including the rest of the team—Grace McKean, Lucy Morrison, Nate Nixon and Declan Price—led by example donating nonperishable items such as canned corn, tuna, macaroni and cheese, cereal, ramen, peanut butter and more.

For the SBOs, the impact mattered the most.

“The best part is knowing people will have dinner,” Isla said.

June added: “And if they have access to schools, they can ask for more help.”

Andrew said he learned he was fortunate: “We’re pretty lucky we can eat every day.”

In addition to the food drive, the officers set examples as school leaders.

Piper said they help classmates find friends, so they want to be at school.

June added: “We welcome people to school and tell them we’re glad they’re here. It’s important to make everyone feel they belong.”

Earlier in the school year, they attended the BYU leadership conference for school leaders.

Draper Elementary students collected nearly 1,600 pounds of food during their recent food drive. (Julie Slama/City Journals)