Jun 5, 2023 2 min read

Algebra Part A students at Fort Couch Middle School and Upper St. Clair High School teamed up to help those less fortunate. The students hosted a food, clothing and toy drive to benefit the Food Helpers of Washington County.

Nonperishable food items and new or gently used clothing and toys were collected May 26 through June 2. Monetary donations were accepted for the food bank as well.

This marked the ninth year that the Algebra 1 Part A classes have collaborated on a food drive project. Coordinating the outreach effort was Shannon Strayer, USCHS math teacher, and Michelle Senneway, Fort Couch math teacher.

“We link the food and clothing drive to our algebra classes by creating an algebra equation and graph the results daily,” Strayer said. “We value all food and clothing donations at $1.25 each and with the combination of all money and food/clothing collected want to have a ‘total value’ of at least $5,000. We discuss how many more items/money needs to be donated in order to hit the goal.”

Students were assigned a variety of tasks including advertising the drive, collecting the food, counting and sorting items and calculating the total value.

In addition to their collection efforts, students will spend a day volunteering at the Food Helpers of Washington County, where they will plant gardens, pack Senior Boxes in the food bank and sort clothing at the organization’s thrift store.

Last year, students collected over 7,000 food and clothing items and more than $500 in monetary donations to benefit the Food Helpers.