County Executive Honors Herber Students For Helping to Feed Long Island's Hungry

Students at in Malverne proved that they 'can' have an amazing impact when they all pull together. The Student Council had set out to collect 1,000 cans to feed the hungry when they began their annual food drive in November. It was a lofty goal, but with the help of their fellow students, faculty members and some healthy competition, they nearly tripled this amount.

Together the students and staff amassed approximately 2,400 cans of non-perishable food, which will be sent to the Long Island Care's Harry Chapin Food Bank.

The Student Council, under the direction of English teacher and advisor Jill Prescott, used some friendly competition to encourage the drive to take off. They set up a contest among all of the homerooms and challenged them to see who could collect the most food. In the end, there was a tie for first place between two homerooms that each brought in 350 cans, with second place going to a group who turned in 175 and third place to a homeroom with 106 food items.

"They really went above and beyond," Prescott said.

The Student Council gathered together in the school's auditorium on Monday to pose among the cans they collected which had been stacked into towering pyramids.There, they were greeted by Paule Pachter, executive director of Long Island Cares, and County Executive Ed Mangano, who had brought citations for each of them.

"You should be very proud of your accomplishments," he told the students. "I hope other schools on Long Island will follow your lead in future years."

The students also received praise from their proud Principal Steven Gilhuley, who said, "It was a great job by all of our students and our staff who continually support all of our community efforts here." 

Superintendent Dr. James Hunderfund added, "This reinforces our whole value for community service and service to others who need assistance, and part of our character education program."