100 days, 923 cans of food

Can you count to 100?

For elementary school-age kids who just learned to count to 100, it is a pretty big number. The number 100 is a pretty big deal for the students at Truman elementary school. Wednesday was their 100th day of being in school this year. The whole day was all about 100, with number activities and a 100-can food drive for each grade level. The cans of food will all be donated to Green River's food bank.

"It's their little pay back," kindergarten teacher Carolyn Locker said.

This is the second year Truman has done the canned food drive as part of their 100 days celebration. They heard of a little school that had collected 100 cans of food from the whole school, for their 100 Day celebration.

"Well we've got more kids than that little school had, so we said, let's see if each grade level could get a hundred cans," Locker said.

And they did. With each grade level combined, their canned food goal for the school was 500. They exceeded that. The school collected 923 cans total.

Junior kindergarten and kindergarten combined collected 241 cans. First grade collected 123. Second grade collected 205 cans. Third grade gathered 100, and fourth grade got 254.

Kindergarten teacher Carolyn Locker said she doesn't remember a time when they didn't celebrate 100 days of school. However the canned food drive is a nice addition to the celebration.

"Our kindergartners have to count them, and so they have to practice counting to 100," Locker said.

Truman celebrated the special day with five stations of number 100 activities.

Locker's kindergarten class have been waiting for the 100-day mark. They have been counting down the days. Only six more days, only five more days, the kids would count down, she said.

On the hundredth day, they had to give 100 cheers to mark the occasion, ten at a time of course. "OK there's 10, now let's go 20," Locker would say to her students.

"They love something fun and different," she said. "It's been crazy."