CONWAY – You could call it a mini Monte’s March.
As WRSI The River radio host Monte Belmonte led swarms of people on a 43-mile walk from Springfield to Greenfield to raise awareness about hunger, a microcosm of that community effort was taking place at Conway Grammar School on Tuesday morning.
Forty-five staffers and all 138 students at the school took to the street on a cold, wet day to replicate the ninth annual Monte’s March and the sentiment behind it. Principal Kristen Gordon said the event raised about $4,500 by noon for The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts.
“Oh, it’s so heart-warming. We have great kids,” she said as the students and staffers marched. “They really know what this means and what it’s all about, so I love seeing the empathy that they’re showing.”
The marchers left the school building around 11 a.m. and began their walk at the mailboxes near the start of Fournier Road before heading up the road and through the parking lot, to the rear of the building and back around to the front. They repeated the route once. Gordon explained the two laps equaled 1 mile. This is the third year the school has held the march.
She said the students, in preschool through sixth grade, have recently been learning about hunger and its causes. She said many students have asked about the street homelessness they see in the area. Some students marched with signs consisting of messages of support for those suffering from hunger.
“I love that they know what it’s for – instead of just blindly marching,” parent Maggy Sawma told Gordon. Sawma, the mother of first-grader Amelia, 6, and preschooler Willard, 3, was there to take photographs for the school.
The nobleness of the school march’s cause was not lost on the students, three of whom said they took pride in helping the less fortunate.
Sixth-grader, Mary Burt, 11, said she admires Montague resident Monte Belmonte for selflessly organizing the larger event and she enjoys helping the effort.
“It’s a nice feeling to know that we’re supporting people who are in need and don’t have as much as other people do,” she said.
She said $1 provides three meals for those in need.
Fellow sixth-grader, Collin West, 11, said hunger is a problem affecting the whole planet.
“It’s not just here. We’re not just marching for the people in Holyoke and Springfield and western Mass.,” he said after the march. “We’re marching for people all over the world and … we’re trying to help everyone and we’ve raised a lot of money already.”
Classmate Olivia Machon, also 11, said she likes “the feeling of supporting all the people in need and the food bank.”
Prior to the march, West and brothers Magnus Harrison, fifth grade, and Rowan Harrison, second grade, had their names randomly drawn from a bag and were given foam Statue of Liberty crowns to wear during the event.
Gordon said school nurse Meg Burch, speech-language pathologist Jo Cyr-Mutty and fifth-grade teacher Maggie West spearheaded the committee that planned the event and started organizing it about two months ago.
Monte’s March passed through Franklin County on Tuesday. Since it began in 2010, the event has raised nearly $883,000 for the food bank, providing approximately 2.6 million meals to neighbors in need. Belmonte said this year that he hopes to break the $1 million mark.
Reach Domenic Poli at:
dpoli@recorder.com or
413-772-0261, ext. 262.