Trade fair and food drive a success for local schools

Sunnyside Intermediate School held its annual Trade Fair Dec. 13 and St. Jude Thaddeus School wrapped up its food drive last week, with both schools feeling more than satisfied with the results.

The Sunnyside Trade Fair was put on by the fifth-grade class and featured a variety of crafts that were all made by fifth-graders who used household items for their work.

In the evening, the public was invited to the gym to see what the fifth-graders created and they could even purchase the creations.

This year, the Trade Fair raised $4,500. The funds will go to causes like Havre Public Schools scholarships, Havre Food Bank, the women and children’s shelter, North Central Montana Shrine Club’s travel fund and Hi-Line Sletten Cancer Center.

Sunnyside Principal Carmen Lunak said she loves the Trade Fair and the way it brings the community together.

“I am so impressed with our students’ creativity and willingness to reach and help the community,” she added.

St. Jude Thaddeus School held a food drive that was made personal for the students as they were told the food would be given to four families in Havre. No information other than the size of the family was provided to the students.

Principal Mike Haugen paired the eighth-, seventh-, sixth- and fifth-grade classes with a younger class and each team competed to see who could bring in the most food.

Haugen said that while it was a competition of sorts, there would be no prize involved as the main goal was to give back.

Their initial goal was 400 pounds of food total so they could give 100 pounds to each family. The final tally for the food brought in was 1,170 pounds of food.

Haugen said parishioners did contribute as well, but the bulk of it was brought in by the students.

The food was distributed last Thursday to the families and Carly Brunk and a few junior high students took the remaining 490 pounds over to the Havre Food Bank Friday, Haugen said.

“I feel just really proud of what they did,” he added. “… I’m very, very pleased.”

With this year’s food drive being such a success, Haugen said he was going to raise the bar for the students next year.

“We just set the bar and we’re going to exceed that next year and the year after that,” he added. “It was a great start. It shouldn’t have surprised me.”

“It went better than we could have ever imagined,” Brunk said. “… They were just motivated.”

Brunk added that some students were even disappointed that they were 10 pounds short of being able to provide 500 pounds of food to the Havre Food Bank.

Brunk said she felt like the system of pairing the older grades with the younger ones worked really well and that the younger students really wanted to prove themselves to the older students. She added that they would be sticking with the same format next year.