Kids at Our Lady of Sorrows School held a successful charity event during Lent this year.

The 508 kids in the Catholic school in south St. Louis collected 11,882 cans of food during the neighborhood drive.

Fourteen-year-old Tom Stevison said, "The food covered about half of the whole gym floor."

Stevison and other eighth graders played an especially important part in the fund drive.

All kids, from kindergarten to eighth grade, took part in the drive. But, it was the eighth graders who also came in to sort and box all the canned goods so it could be delivered to charities and food pantries.

Principle Rick Danzeisen said, "If it wasn't for the eighth graders sorting the food, we couldn't have completed the drive."

The "Care with Canned Goods" drive was the first for the school. The goal was to collect at least 10,000 cans of food. The kids' effort went over the goal by nearly 20 per cent.

A total of 10 different charitable agencies shared in the flood of canned goods from the school.

Fourteen-year-old Andrew Schmidt said the students made up plastic bags with the "Care with Canned Goods" slogan on them.

"We put a folded Schnucks paper bag along with the note inside the plastic bag. Then, we hung that on the door knobs," he said.

Fourteen-year-old Anna Mazzola said, "Each class was assigned a neighborhood to cover." After the homeowners had a week to buy canned goods, the kids went around and collected the filled bags.

Her classmate, fourteen-year-old Beth Lacheniecht, said, "It was fun going out with the bags and then collecting the food."

Fourteen-year-old Katie Wagener said, "We got out of school one day to pass out the bags. I liked that."

Tom Stevison said, "A lot of the neighbors were happy we were doing the food drive."

Paul Voss said the eighth graders' work was just getting started when all the bags were brought to the school. "We had to sort the cans into vegetables, fruits and other types of food. Then, we put them in boxes for the charities," he said.

Once the food was boxed, the charities came to the school one Saturday to get their allotment of food.

Principal Danzeisen alerted the families about the food drive at the beginning of Lent. The collection actually had three phases.

First, kids were asked to bring canned goods to the school's Ash Wednesday all-school liturgy on Feb. 28.

Parents also were asked to make a decorated box and take it to their workplace.

Then, the kids' organized the neighborhood bag collection. The bags went out on Monday, April 2, with collection of the filled bags the next Monday.

For those who wanted to participate but didn't want to send cans of food, money contributions were accepted. For each 50 cents donated, the kids were credited with one can of food.

The final count on the food drive indicated there were nearly 24 cans of food collected by each of the 508 students in the school. That's a pretty fine Lenten contribution to the needy from the kids at Our Lady of Sorrows School.