STRONGSVILLE – From little arms and legs come great things.

And the tiniest school in the Strongsville City School District has helped families enjoy Thanksgiving and weeks beyond thanks to its collective generosity.

Food donations from Chapman Elementary School’s 328 students came rolling in for the Strongsville Emergency Food Bank during a project organized by the Strongsville High School Interact Club, the teenage equivalent of Rotary. Total donations were estimated at $4,682 during the five-day (Nov. 14-18) drive.

It was an article in The Strongsville Post last August that triggered the idea to involve kindergarten through fifth-grade students, according to Interact Club President Rohan Sinha.

“We saw in The Post how the food bank was pretty depleted,” he said. “We figured that we could use Interact funds to perhaps sponsor an ice cream or pizza party that we could get elementary school students motivated.”

Sinha emailed elementary school principals. Chapman Principal Greg Pollock responded within hours.

“We live in a very generous community. We were all in as soon as he (Sinha) mentioned it,” Pollock said. “The way it was described was motivational for our kids.”

The idea for the project was for a contest pitting each of the six grades (K-5) at Chapman against one another in order to collect as many items as possible for the food bank.

The fourth-grade class was the overall winner. Food items were assigned certain point values for the contest. Peanut butter was worth five points; every two rolls of toilet paper, one roll of paper towels or one box of Kleenex was worth four points; tuna was worth three points; ravioli was worth two points and all other items was worth one point.

Morning announcements at Chapman talked up the project and teachers spoke about the initiative to generate enthusiasm.

Did it surprise Sinha and Pollock how much food was collected at Chapman?

“It was absolutely shocking. The fact that a school the size of Chapman was able to produce more than four-and-a-half-thousand dollars’ worth of food is insane,” Sinha said. “I have no words to express our gratitude to Mr. Pollock, the staff and students. It’s such a divided time with the political climate. It’s a great thing that the community could come together to support such a great cause.”

“I kept seeing the bags coming in. I was helping kindergarten students one morning and seeing the boxes overflowing was very heartwarming,” Pollock said.

Sinha and fellow Interact Cub member Joey Stewart delivered the Chapman collected food to the food bank the morning of Nov. 19.

“You see on the news how bad the world is and how much hatred there is, but then you zoom in on Strongsville, Ohio and see how a little city can raise this much from one elementary school. There really is good in the world,” Stewart said.

There are currently 240 families signed up with the Strongsville Emergency Food Bank.

“This community is awesome. You don’t realize how much this helps,” said Kelly Kling, food bank coordinator. “The holiday season is the hardest for everybody. Helping us give people a little more food helps a little bit. It’s heartwarming to see.”