Brad Altman (center), his fourth grade classmates and Crest Memorial's peer leadership group collected nearly 3000 items or the United Way food pantry. photo: Maureen Cawley

Crest Memorial fourth-grader, Brad Altman may have $100 less in his college fund this year, but he still believes he has a lot to be thankful for.

The 9-year old didn’t splurge on a frivolous new video game or a trendy iPod, instead he filled a grocery cart with boxes of non-perishable food items and donated them to his school’s drive for the United Way of Cape May County’s Food Pantry.
“I had $1000 in a bank account,” Altman said. “It’s for college, but I figure that the poor people could use it just as much as I could.”

Altman’s gesture was a huge motivator for his classmates, who won the friendly competition among Crest Memorial’s classes to see who could collect the most food during the Thanksgiving drive.

Amy Leusner, Altman’s teacher said she was impressed with how enthusiastic the students were about helping others.
“They really did a great job,” she said. Her class, with Altman’s extraordinary donation collected more than 400 food items—more than any other class, and they will hold a pizza party to celebrate.

The annual event was organized by the school’s Peer Leadership group, who made presentations to their classmates about the needs of the community. They also kept records of the number of items collected, and they hauled and sorted the bounty of goods before delivering them to United Way headquarters at The First Baptist Church, 230 E. Maple Avenue.

Crest Memorial has held a holiday food drive to benefit the United Way for as long as any-one can remember, and the pantry counts on restocking its shelves with the school’s donation every year, United Way of Cape May County Executive Director Suzanne Nardi said.

This year, Crest Memorial students donated almost 3,000 food items to help provide relief to residents of the Wildwoods during financial hardship. Winter is a typically lean time for the working poor. They are often forced to weigh the cost of home heat and warm clothing against the cost of food.

“In the past, the generosity of the Crest Memorial School community would get us through Christmas and January,” Nardi said, but this year she is not so sure. Tough economic times are increasing the need for the some of the basic food items that the pantry provides.

“We’re seeing between six and 10 new people every week,” Nardi said, “And in some cases both the husband and wife are working.” But they still are having trouble making ends meet.

“It’s effecting everybody,” Nardi said, “But he food from this drive will certainly go a long way in helping us meet those needs.”
Crest students said they feel good about being able to help.

Seventh Graders Tom DePaul and Abby Haury are peer leaders who helped run the drive, and for their efforts in motivating the winning class and hauling the donations, they’ll be invited to the pizza party, as well.

DePaul was very impressed with the generosity of his schoolmates, especially the fourth grade class.

“We told them who the food was for and where it goes,” DePaul said, and they came through with more boxes than the peer leaders could carry.

“We had to get a cart from the main office to move them,” DePaul said.

The students give the lion’s share of the credit to Altman and his incredible generosity.

“We didn’t even tell him to do that,” DePaul said. “That was pretty cool."