Tag Archive: danny keith

Nov
04

Grind Out Hunger in Watsonville Patch – Mount Madonna School

Categories:
MMS_GRINDOUTHUNGER4

MMS 2nd Grade Class showing off what items to bring to donate to the Grind Out Hunger Food Drive


Students Unite to Collect Food
Posted to Watsonville Patch on November 2, 2011 at 5:00am
Article by: Leigh Ann Clifton

Gazing out from the stage in the school’s Assembly Room, 15 second grade students stood and collectively asked the assembled audience some objective questions: “What if you only had one meal a day, could you be happy? Could you concentrate in school? Probably not,” they answered. “Your stomach would ache, your head would hurt and your heart would be broken.”

The audience, Mount Madonna School’s (MMS) 6th through 12th graders, listened quietly. “One in four children in Santa Cruz County doesn’t have enough to eat,” the second graders continued. “What did you have for breakfast and lunch? Will you have dinner tonight? Many in our community will not.”

Like many local schools, MMS is participating in the Second Harvest Food Bank’s “Grind Out Hunger” program, with students, faculty and staff urged to reach into their pantries and donate food to feed those less fortunate.

“Children in Santa Cruz County need our help,” comments 7-year-old Grace Timan.

“People are suffering,” adds classmate Ben Pearson.

“We are fortunate; we have food so we should help others,” says Addy Catterall-Pendleton.

“We want everyone here at MMS to be kind and give a donation,” urges Bryce Adams.

Following a recent presentation by Shawn Hatjes, an MMS alumnus who now works with the Grind Out Hunger program, the second grade adopted the food drive as part of their class’s social service curriculum, says second-grade teacher Jenni Leach.

The class learned about hunger in the community from the Second Harvest website, and practiced their math skills in referencing statistics from Second Harvest’s 2010 Hunger Survey. The students designed posters based on what they had learned to encourage donating on the MMS campus. They wrote letters to their 6th grade big buddies about why each person should donate to Grind Out Hunger. The second grade then created a class four-paragraph essay about the needs of the local community, the Grind Out Hunger program, MMS’ history of giving; and how the students can give more this year. The second graders presented their essay to the Mount Madonna’s middle and high school students to enlist their participation with the effort, too.

“According to Second Harvest ‘2010 Hunger Survey,’ some 17,000 people per week in Santa Cruz County are served food through the bank’s program, up from 12,000 in 2006,” notes Leach. “That is about 885,000 people a year needing food in this county!”

People wishing to contribute to MMS’ collection for Grind Out Hunger can bring up donations of canned and boxed foods. Monetary donations are also welcome – for every one dollar donated, Second Harvest is able to purchase three pounds of food from local farmers and vendors. Mount Madonna’s participation in the food drive continues until Thanksgiving.

Grind Out Hunger was started in 2003 by Santa Cruz Skate and Surf Shop owner Danny Keith, as a way to inspire kids to get involved with helping other kids in the community who didn’t have enough to eat. “He is one compassionate skateboarder,” says the second grade class.

MMS 2nd Grade Class presents Grind Out Hunger to Middle and High School Students

Grind Out Hunger Program Coordinator, Shawn Hatjes, with MMS 2nd Grade class after presentation.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Nov
03

Del Mar Elementary Kickoff Presentation

Categories:
IMG_5284

Talk about a fired up crowd of kids! These little ones at Del Mar Elementary were screaming at the top of their lungs telling Danny Keith, Grind Out Hunger founder, they they were all going to bring in TONS of food donations this holiday season.

Danny walked up and sat on the stage in from of all of the kids at Del Mar. After getting all of the kid’s attention he talked for a while about Second Harvest Food Bank, how it operates, and who it serves. He explained how the food bank distributes food to over 200 Agencies that, in turn, give them out to the community members in need. It is the youth’s job to help their peers and feed their friends by donating to the food bank through Grind Out Hunger.
Danny asked the kids to each bring in a quarter and give it to their teacher to count towards their Grind Out Hunger Food Drive.
Danny explained that each quarter is equivalent to 1 healthy meal.

We wrapped up the presentation with a quick question and answer session. We had questions from many students, but one comment for student, Terra Bella that stood out. Terra Bella explained to Danny that she thinks that each student at Del Mar Elementary has the capability of bringing in 4 pounds of food. The school has approximately 430 kids which means that Terra Bella has set the goal for Del Mar Elementary at 1,300 pounds.
Think they can do it? We Do!!! The Grind Out Hunger team thinks they can exceed that goal!

Cant wait to see how many pounds they bring in!
Good luck Del Mar Elementary!


Tags: , , ,

Oct
28

Aptos High School Kickoff Presentation

Categories:
aptos5


Aptos High School, the first school to embrace Grind Out Hunger back in 2005. When all other schools questioned the brand new program, Aptos took it in and owned it. We know these kids have endless amounts of school pride and sprit. It is this motivation that will bring Aptos High School to the top during this years food drive.

Principal, Casey O’Brien introduced Grind Out Hunger founder, Danny Keith to all 1400+ students in the gym. Danny took the floor and gave his speech to all of the students on how and why they need to step up to help fight this battle against hunger in our community.

Danny emphasized 3 main ways to make their food drive numbers sky rocket:

#1: Bring a bagged lunch to school and donate the $3 that you would have used to purchase a meal on campus to Grind Out Hunger.
#2: Take that quarter that you get for change during lunch and drop it into a donation container every day. A quarter = 1 healthy meal.
#3: Bring in canned food and drop them in the donation barrels around campus.

We looked at the numbers and found that last year Aptos Jr. High raised 11,500 Pounds. Almost tripling Aptos High’s raise last year of 4,500. We are wanting to see Aptos High to own this program again and be the ones on top. With their student body and faculty, we know they all have more than enough power to do it.

As we left Aptos High we had a teacher run up to us and buy a skateboard. We also has a faculty member say that he had funds that would tack on another 1200 pounds. Thats 1400 pounds right off the bat! Aptos High is already on a roll.
Let see what happens when the kids start bringing in the donations!

We are planning on having a skate event at Aptos High School on Wednesday November 9th at 1pm. This will be our first ever skate event held on a school campus. Students from Aptos as well as all schools within Santa Cruz County are welcome. We will bring our full ramp setup in our NEW 48ft trailer. Students will be allowed to skate as long as they bring in $5 OR 5 Cans to donate that day.

It is required that participants fill out a waiver and bring it to the event in order to skate.
You can download that waiver HERE: Aptos_High_Liability_Release (51)

If you are wanting to donate online you can CLICK THE BUTTON BELOW and make your donation direct to Aptos High School’s food drive numbers…


 

Aptos High Principal, Casey O'Brien (left) and Grind Out Hunger Founder, Danny Keith.

Tags: , , , , ,

Oct
26

Grind Out Hunger School Food Drive Kickoff Updates

Categories:
montevista2



Grind Out Hunger season is in full effect. We are traveling around the county speaking to schools, encouraging the kids to raise food/money for this years Grind Out Hunger Food Drive. We have been having a lot of positive feedback and all of the kids seem to be fired up! From what we are seeing it seems like they are getting it, they know that they a a huge part of solving the hunger issues we have in our county and beyond.

We thought we would give you all a quick update of our school presentation adventures…

Aptos High School

A few weeks ago we sat down with Aptos High School principal, Casey O’Brien and asked him why Aptos Jr. High crushed them in pounds raised for Grind Out Hunger last year. O’Brien, fired up, said that this year they would rock the Grind Out Hunger Food Drive. Their food drive kicks off this Friday, we are traveling over to Aptos High to present to the entire high school in order to get the kids amped and ready. We will also be announcing that we will be having a Skate Jam on their campus in a couple weeks. Our First ever skate jam hosted by a school. This is a HUGE stepping stone for Grind Out Hunger…We will update you all on that bit later.

Ceiba College Prep

A couple representatives from Ceiba College Prep came in to Second Harvest Food bank on Tuesday afternoon. They took a tour of the facility, filiming it, in order to create a short video to present to the rest of the students back at the school. They were able to flag down Danny Keith and get him to do a short, personal presentation to the kids on camera asking them to raise food and beat their 1,300 pound mark that they hit last year.

Mission Hill Middle School

Mission Hill Middle school is always a fun place to visit. Instead of presenting to a room of students we present on Mission Hill TV, which is broadcast to each class throughout the school. We sat in a small room and talked for a while about the Grind Out Hunger Food Drive and how the kids can get involved and raise the most amount of pounds for their school. Mission Hill is excited about selling our Grind Out Hunger wristbands. Each wristband is equivalent to 6 pounds of food! A great way to fund raise!

Monte Vista Middle School

Monte Vista Middle School, what a great campus and group of kids. We presented to them in their gym and got a phenomenal reaction from every single one. They had a whole assembly prepared showing videos as well as kids explaining to their peers what types of food to bring in to donate. We had a great time with all of those kids, we even had students come up to us giving us cash donations on the spot! How awesome is that!?! We are looking forward to seeing what Monte Vista will do this year after last years 6,000 pounds raised! Lets hit that 8,000 mark shall we? Or maybe 10,000!? You all have the drive and spirit! Let’s do this!

 

Recording a short video to present to Ceiba College Prep students.

Monte Vista Middle School

Grind Out Hunger founder, Danny Keith, speaking to Monte Vista Middle School.

Students at Monte Vista Middle School present to their peers what types of food to bring in to fill their donation barrels.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Oct
16

Noah Gabay Speaks to Orchard School on Behalf of Grind Out Hunger

Categories:
ORCHARD1

Orchard School

We were approached by Noah Gabay a couple months ago. For his Bar Mitzvah he is required to complete a certain amount of community service hours he wanted to help out with local non-profit that he would be able to continue helping once his community service hours were completed. We first thought about putting him to work at our warehouse, sorting food or stuffing envelopes to send out to the community. This wasn’t what Noah wanted to do, he wanted to be more active and play a lead role in the fight against hunger. Noah told us that he wanted to present to kids on behalf of Grind Out Hunger. He wanted to stand up in front of groups and ask his peers to help him fight food insecurity within Santa Cruz County and beyond.

Thrilled, we quickly set up a meeting with Noah and went over facts, tips, and ideas for how a presentation would look. He took all of the info we threw at him, absorbed it, studied it and put it to perfect use. He presented to Orchard School last Thursday morning. We went along with him to show our support, but he did all the talking. The next day we received an email from the school requesting for materials to run a food drive. Noah has put Orchard School on the map this year for Grind Out Hunger. We cant wait to see what this school can do!

Big shout out to Noah for doing this. We hear that Noah is going to continue speaking to classes and schools around the county. We will be sure to keep you all updated as he continues to help spread the word of Grind Out Hunger. Be sure to check out the YouTube video we embedded below of Noah presenting to Orchard School.

If you would like to help out Grind Out Hunger in any way, please feel free to send us an email:
shawn@grindouthunger.org

Noah Presenting to Orchard School
Noah Handing out Grind Out Hunger Wristbands
Noah standing next to Grind Out Hunger founder, Danny Keith.


Check out a video of Noah presenting to Orchard School!!

Tags: , , , , ,

Oct
12

2nd Annual Skate-A-Thon Raises 6,000 Pounds!

Categories:
IMG_2439

2nd Annual Skate-A-Thon

This past Saturday was our 2nd Annual Skate-A-Thon at Twin Lakes Church. It was the first time we were able to put our NEW 48ft trailer to the test. We hauled the ramps to Twin Lakes Church at around 830am Saturday morning and unloaded them all by 10am. With help of a few of the Twin lakes staff we were able to get everything done quickly and smoothly. Last year this event had on and off rain, this year we couldn’t have asked for better weather. The sun was shining with barley any clouds in the sky. Having nice weather, fun music, a great crowd, and a bunch of kids skating made this event the success that it was.

Kids started showing up to skate right at 10am. Many of them stayed all the way from 10am-4pm. Our mission during these events is to create a safe, fun environment for kids to skate for a good cause. It bring awareness to the youth as well as their families about the hunger issues in Santa Cruz County and beyond. They are able to see how supporting the community can be combined with fun activities such as skateboarding.

We had a table set up with merch and a place to purchase raffle tickets. Items we had available included; hats, stickers, buttons, wristbands, and skate decks. We ended up raffling off 2 skate decks signed by Jimbo Phillips as well as a Grind Out hunger hat.  Twin lakes Church Pastor, René Schlaepfer even stopped by the event for a bit to show his support. He was thrilled about the environment we had set up for kids to skate in support of a good cause.

The event ended up raising 1,500+ pounds of food including both cash and canned food donations. The Helen and Will Webster Foundation ended up giving us a $1500 cash donation totaling our poundage to 6,000!!!

Thanks to Dominic Cusimano, owner of 3D Construction for helping with setup and ramp repairs, Ben K of TAC Apparel Company for helping with this years flyer, Jimbo Phillips for signing decks and being a huge supporter of the cause
Big thanks to Twin Lakes Church and their staff for providing the space for the event as well as setup and breakdown support.

We also wanted to give a shout out to Mike Murray, who shot photos during the event and shared them with us on our facebook page. Be sure to head over to www.facebook.com/grindouthunger to check some of them out!

Can’s wait until next year!
Be sure to be on the lookout for our next skate event. Another one is in the works. Stay tuned.

Putting Our New 48ft Trailer to the Test.

Colby Phillips shredding...

Dropping in...

Our New Grind Out Hunger Stickers.

Zane Keith tearing it up at the Skate-A-Thon

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Older posts «

» Newer posts