Frontier students make food bank donation

MOSES LAKE — Students in the “Play 60” program at Frontier Middle School did some research while they were looking for a community service project. They discovered an interesting fact about food banks and milk.

“Not a lot of food banks have it because it gets spoiled easily,” said Juliana Mendez, who’s one of the FMS students in Play 60. Moses Lake Food Bank director Peny Archer said that’s true in Moses Lake, at least – milk doesn’t get donated that often. And when it does, it’s usually not whole milk. “Whole milk – that’s what’s recommended for children.”

So the kids in Play 60 decided to make milk their project. “We fund-raised for about a week,” said Tina Nguyen. “We did a thing called the ‘miracle minute,’” said Molly Shearer, where kids and staff at Frontier were asked to donate whatever change they happened to be carrying.

At the end of the week the Play 60 students had raised $200. Wednesday morning the students walked from Frontier to the food bank to deliver the check. Their donation will be used for exactly what the kids intended. “We will spend every bit of it on milk,” Archer said.

The Play 60 program is designed to encourage physical fitness and better nutrition, said instructor Rita Gardner. And it’s designed to encourage kids to identify problems, at school and in their communities, and find solutions. The Play 60 students are looking for other projects for the school year, Gardner said.