West Hill Students Step Up To The Plate To Help Rocky Hill Families

By Lynn Marie Marinelli

This year, West Hill’s third grade students rose to the occasion and gave tremendous effort to help Rocky Hill’s families in need once again. Beginning in late February students collected pledges for reading that they would do during the month of March.

Once March Madness reading began, students recorded the books that they read and finished each night for homework. When March ended, students responsibly tallied the books, collected their pledges, returned their individual envelopes to school and waited for the grand totals. We were all amazed to see the incredible data this year! Students read 1,061 books and collected 1,695 dollars for the Rocky Hill food bank!

Mark Williams, director of the food bank’s operations says, “He is so happy to see the children in the Rocky Hill community coming together to make such a big difference in the lives of others. Since the food bank operates on cash and product donations, this is a huge bump in our inventory and therefore increases the number of people we can support.”


The third grade teachers at West Hill have conducted the Read to Feed campaign as an extension of the reading curriculum for the past two years. Students have read and learn about others that have done what they could to make a difference in their own community.

The notion that coming together for a cause can make a difference is witnessed first in the reading, and then as students participate in the Read to Feed program. To date the students have raised over $3,500 for the food bank, and equally as important the students have read over 1,500 books!

To say that teachers are amazed at what their students have done is an understatement! Our students certainly have made a positive difference in their community!