Roanoke Times Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 24, 1993 TAG: 9311240211 SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO SOURCE: LAURA WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"You helped to make somebody have a happy, happy Thanksgiving," the special education teacher from Lincoln Terrace Elementary said. "Look at the food now. You did this."
Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, Mason directs a schoolwide food drive at Lincoln Terrace. And every holiday, after the cans have been collected and the cash donations spent at grocery stores, she parades every child past the amassed goodies to show them the results of their efforts.
Tuesday, as her special education class prepared to assemble the food boxes for 10 needy families in the Roanoke Valley, Mason asked more than 280 pupils to look carefully at the 20-pound turkeys, cartons of eggs and boxes of butter. They stood on proud display among the bags of dinner rolls, boxes of aluminum foil and rice. In the back of the room, more than 400 cans - all donated from the children's homes - waited to be packed.
At a school where more than 85 percent of the pupils cannot afford to buy lunch, the project teaches the children that "you are supposed to share, regardless of what little you have," Principal William Sinkler said.
"These kids know that we are giving, we are not just receiving," said Mason. "Your hand is not always out."
Indeed, the children at Lincoln Terrace often extend their hands - to help others.
Behind the Thanksgiving food donations rested boxes of favors the children made for the Red Cross. In all, they have decorated 1,186 favors since September to be placed on patient food trays at nursing homes and at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Salem.
They have donated more than 200 boxes of supplies for children in disaster areas. Sinkler said pupils sometimes bring in up to eight tubes of toothpaste to be packed into Red Cross boxes that also include soap, shampoo and hairbrushes for children whose families have lost everything because of floods or other natural disasters.
It's all a part of the school's motto, which Sinkler keeps hanging on a plaque in his office.
"It's nice to be important," the plaque reads, "but it's more important to be nice."
Mason has been directing the food drives for 14 years, she said. Douglas Dowe, who was principal when the drives began, retired in 1988 but comes back each year in his pickup truck to deliver the food to families as far away as Bedford.
He takes some of the bigger children with him to help. It's important for them to see the task through, Dowe said.
The food drive has become so popular that sometimes families call to ask if they can receive baskets, said Mason. But she's careful to screen the recipients to make sure they need the help.
Families of children at the school come first, said Mason, then senior citizens. Teachers - who donated $160 this year for the turkeys - help to identify candidates. So does the PTA, which donated $100 for "fixings."
But the holiday lessons focus on more than just giving. Centered in the middle of the room, Mason placed a dinner table with place settings ranging from paper plates to china.
She tells her pupils it doesn't matter how fancy the celebration is, "as long as love is right there at the table."
by CNB