Kids from W.G. Mallett School line up to carry bags of food into the Farmington Community Center on Friday, Dec. 15, for Mallett’s Helping Hands food project. The RSU 9 food pantry, which sits in the basement of the Community Center, is this year’s beneficiary. Brian Ponce/Franklin Journal

FARMINGTON — The kids at W.G. Mallett School got a chance to practice some of the components of their STARS program on Friday, Dec. 15, by showing kindness and carrying bags of food donated from their families to the RSU 9 Community Food Pantry.

With a hop, skip and a jump, the children quickly filled up the tables with food in the basement of the Farmington Community Center, host of the pantry, as a part of the school’s thirty-fifth annual “Helping Hands” food project.

Started in 1988, Helping Hands has donated food to the community through various forms and methods throughout the years. From bucket brigading bags of food in a chain of kids from both WGMS and Cascade Brook School to the various food pantries that have been the recipients over the years, a lot has changed but the idea stays the same.

In congruence with Helping Hands, WGMS incorporated the STARS [Safety, Try your best, Always respectful, Responsible, and Showing kindness] student program to allow the children to demonstrate the five core tenants.

“I reminded everyone that when we’re doing this kind of giving process, we’re showing that we’re responsible for being members of our community,” Principal Tracy Williams said in an interview.  “And we’re showing kindness. We try to make connections for kids around those behaviors that we teach.”

Kids from Pre-kindergarten to the second grade walked with their class from the school to the Community Center, where the RSU 9 food pantry had tables ready for the kids to drop off their food. In the past, Helping Hands has also given to the The Care And Share Food Closet.

The kids used to do a human chain in the past, and bucket brigade bags of food from the school. Since roughly 2009, some cold Maine winters have made walking and staying active much more ideal options for the kids.

“We had a couple of really cold Helping Hands days,” Williams shared, “where it was down in the single digits, and the wind was blowing, and kids got really, really cold. Some kids were crying and it was miserable. The following year, someone said, ‘you know, what if we just kept everybody moving and than everyone had a bag’, and so we then began doing it that way.”

Bob Hallman, right, keeps traffic at bay while the kids from W. G. Mallett carry bags of food to the community center on Friday, Dec. 15. Brian Ponce/Franklin Journal

For traffic safety, Bob Hallman helped out by managing traffic so students and staff could cross the street safely. Beloved by the kids, students showed adoration towards Hallman as they passed with food in hand.

“He’s a rock star to them,” a teacher said.

Bags were also donated to Helping Hands from Bangor Savings Bank and Franklin Savings Bank, with staff and families also sending in bags to be used for the project.

Over in the pantry, Coordinator Kristen Wroble has been working hard to expand the program since moving out of W.G. Mallett School and into the Community Center over the summer. Recently accepting a grant from Good Shepard Food Bank, Wroble is making sure kids in the Anita’s Hope Backpack Program will have a jar of peanut butter, jelly and bread for the week they will be off school.

The jelly was provided by the Tyngtown Club of Wilton with Wroble gathering the bread and peanut butter from Hannaford and Good Shepard Food Bank, respectively. Since the RSU 9 backpack program became Anita’s Hope, Wroble says things have been going great with Tyngtown.

The RSU 9 Community Food Pantry has tables loaded with food after W.G. Mallett swung through with their Helping Hands food project on Friday, Dec. 15. Bangor Savings Bank and Franklin Savings Bank also chipped in by donating re-usable bags for the program. Brian Ponce/Franklin Journal

“It’s been great. They are really wonderful,” Wroble told the Livermore Falls Advertiser. Despite the club’s enormous help, Wroble says more volunteers are needed to keep the food pantry stocked and running smoothly.

After one round by all the kids, tables of food were set to be distributed to families in need in the RSU 9 district. In previous years, students had enough donations to make multiple trips, but Williams lamented that the lighter donations this year may be “a sign of the times”.

“Some of our kids here are going to end up ultimately being the recipients of food from the food pantry,” she said. “The cost of food has gone up, so not as many donations. I think we did well to get one round through.”