Pentucket Regional School District Holds Second Annual Good Neighbor Challenge to Benefit Our Neighbors’ Table

WEST NEWBURY — For the second year in a row, Pentucket Regional School District will be supporting its students, residents, and neighbors through friendly competition in collaboration with Our Neighbors’ Table in Amesbury.

This year, the Good Neighbor Challenge will run from Nov. 9-13. Throughout the week, students, faculty, and family members of each school in the district will be invited to donate nonperishable food items and personal care items. Collected items will be donated to Our Neighbors’ Table, a nonprofit organization that provides reliable, community-based access to food for residents in its service area.

Schools will accumulate “points” based on the following system:

• 1 point = food/personal item or $1 donated
• 2 points = items on the “most needed” list

The most needed food items include canned pumpkin, canned cranberry sauce, gravy (canned or packets), canned cream of mushroom soup, stuffing mix, instant potatoes/potato flakes, pumpkin bread/bread mixes, and baking mixes items/kits.

Since the population of each school within the district varies, each school’s total points will be divided by the number of students and adults in the building to determine the winner.

In the Good Neighbor Challenge’s inaugural year, Sweetsir School in Merrimac was crowned the winner with a total of 23.08 points per person.

For its efforts, Sweetsir received a commemorative plaque that was displayed in the school.

The winner of this year’s contest will be announced on Monday, Nov. 16. The winning school will receive the Good Neighbor Award, which will be presented to them at the Dec. 15 School Committee meeting.

In last year’s challenge, Pentucket Regional School District collected 9,000 food items with an estimated value of $10,000 for Our Neighbors’ Table. This year, the District has its sights set on increasing its donations to the organization, a longtime partner of Pentucket Regional School District.

“It was amazing to see how engaged students were in the initiative last year. Not only is this a friendly competition, but it’s also an opportunity for our students to become aware of the disparities that exist even in their own communities, and make a meaningful contribution to help give everyone equal access to essentials,” said Superintendent Dr. Justin Bartholomew. “We are proud to continue to partner with Our Neighbors’ Table to teach our students the importance of giving back and making a difference in their communities.”