On the first day of December at St. Francis Catholic School, the donation doors opened and cereal boxes stacked up.
“We were shooting for 1,225 boxes of cereal. We got 1,236 I think this morning. So we met our goal,” said teacher Dale Rumph.
On the 19th day of December, more than 1,200 cereal boxes lined the halls, domino-style. It was a combination of community service and critical thinking
for Rumph's class as they applied physics.
“Pretty much we're just figuring out how far we need to go. We're doing momentum and acceleration problems in class, and so that can help like with the momentum of the boxes, I guess,” eighth grader Navy Taylor said.
Added eighth grader Ella Switzer: “We had to do pacing to decide how long the hallways were. And then we had to decide, are the small boxes going to knock over the big boxes? And stuff like that.”
Boxes as far as the eye can see, spanning three football fields in the halls, tumbled down in just over two and a half minutes.
“I'm pleased with the results. I was wondering how it was going to go because the eighth graders just did this and ran with it,” Rumph said.
On Friday, the boxes will be donated to nonprofits in Billings.
“Tumbleweed, High School Food pantries, those kinds of places, family services. So that's where it will all be going from here," Rumph said.
A lot of hard work paid off, in more ways than one.
“It's just really great and it's cool that we get to donate it. And we also are adding money for milk too, so that's really great," Taylor said.
