Kimball Area High School (KAHS) students donated 2,349 items of food and personal care products for the KCLD spirit drive. The students’ efforts won them a concert and dance. “The students got really involved,” said Heather Rainey, KCLD promotions director. KAHS principal Karen Imholte was pleased with the students’ efforts. She commented that the students brought in so much food, the table it was sitting on started to give. To prevent it from breaking, students moved canned food donations to the floor. The students also helped promote the event. They drew a graph, counted the number of items and showed where they stood compared to the two other schools that were participating, Sauk Rapids-Rice and Sartell. Eighth-grader Kayla Kastanek helped draw the graph. Her classmate, Amanda Kuseske said the chart spurred competition. “As soon as the numbers (for KAHS) got higher, students kept bringing in items. We wanted to get ahead of the bigger schools,” Kuseske said. Kastanek mentioned that she brought in about 30 different items, from canned and boxed food, to toiletries. “My mom read something in the paper that said they like tomato and beans, so I brought in these and other stuff we weren’t using,” Kastanek said. Teachers gave incentives for collections, too. Some gave extra credit points or other bonuses. “Mr. Reuter’s class brought in hundreds of items each day. Today (Dec. 19), the class brought in 341 items,” Kastanek said. Reuter motivated his students. He supervises the gym during the lunch hour, and let students who brought in donations enter first. “Mr. Reuter really pushes you. He always said, ‘bring in your items, bring in your times,’” Kastanek said. Indicating that the extra credit incentive was helpful, Derek Orbeck, junior high student government vice president, said, “Some students brought in ten items for each class.” The collection began Monday, Dec. 8 and ran to Friday, Dec. 19. As more items were donated, students’ help was solicited. “I came in third hour and there were about six or seven people here helping to organize,” Kastanek said. Students also counted the various food items. They determined the most popular donation was Ramen Noodles, 93 packages were collected. Overall, KAHS donated many more items than their two competitors. At last count, Sartell had 200 items and Sauk Rapids-Rice had about 2,000. Sartell is the biggest school, and Kimball is the smallest. Sauk Rapids-Rice fell in the middle with about 1,200 students, compared to Kimball’s 427. Imholte asked the students, “If you do the math, what does that tell you?” “It tells us we won,” Orbeck said. Imholte added KAHS donations were equivalent to about five items per student. “[This shows that] teamwork can do a lot,” Kastanek said. “They were all bigger and we really beat them.” KCLD will host a concert for KAHS students, grades 7-12. The concert will feature Twin Cities recording artist Breanne, and will be followed by a dance deejayed by KCLD night personality Dino.
