STUDENTS 'SWEEP' UP FOR FOOD Pantry

Main Street Market hosted a wild and intense Supermarket Sweep on Friday, the brainchild of Kimball Jr/Sr High School Principal Danielle Reader to benefit the Kimball Food Pantry.

Thirty-two students from Kimball Jr./High School raced, ran, searched and scoured the shelves for the 61 items on the shopping list.

Reader explained that "Throughout the years, our school community, comprising both staff and students, has dedicated itself to various endeavors aimed at gathering essential food items for our local food pantry. In the past, we've witnessed the excitement of inter-building competitions and friendly rivalries between our ranches, and last year we had a showdown with Kimball Health Service in our quest to collect the most food."

With Clean Harbors funding this Supermarket Sweep project, Chellie Autrey from the Kimball Food Pantry constructed a $200 shopping list.

Autrey said, "We have never done anything like this before. I got to pick the items most needed at the pantry."

She went on to say that it is so hard and expensive to get food in today's world. So, this project will help replenish the local food pantry.

At 1:15 p.m. on Friday, each ranch, composed of four members, received its shopping list and headed to the shelves to find specific items. The first ranch to successfully its their cart with all the correct items on the list claimed the title of winner and earned valuable ranch points.

The Growling Grizzlies won the contest. The four Grizzlies team members included Joseph Bremer, Grace Moore, Rachel Berger and Braxton Miller. The food pantry was the real winner as it received $1,600 of needed items.

Grace Moore from the winning Grizzlies shared the team's strategy. She said the teacher who helped them had worked at a grocery store, "He told us to have three people to run and one person to stay with the cart and check the items."

The most challenging items to find for the Growling Grizzlies were the no-egg yolk noodles and evaporated milk.

Two teams finished before the Grizzlies, but they had shopped for the wrong size of an item, and the other team had missed an item on the shopping list.

Grace said, "It was really fun. It was really funny seeing everyone running around the store."

Reader said that the ranch system was implemented four years ago. Students are "sorted" into their ranch as a seventh-grader and stay in the same ranch.

Each ranch has about 20 seventh- to -12th graders along with staff members. Ranch challenges are done throughout the year, and the students receive ranch points for good grades and participating in activities. Each quarter, the winning ranch is treated to a field trip.

The ranches are Almosta, Growling Grizzlies, Hidden Valley, Whispering Winds, Speed Goats, Blasing Pitchforks, Callow Cattle and Buffalo Ridge.