RIVER FALLS — The Meyer Middle School Penny War has become a staple. Running a five-year average of $8,000 in donations to the River Falls Community Food Pantry and totaling 16,000 pounds of food donations over its lifespan, it has been nothing but a success.

“Food insecurity is a growing concern in St. Croix and Pierce counties, affecting nearly 1 in 10 households. In October alone, the Food Pantry served 611 households, with 62 of them being new recipients, and distributed about 34,500 pounds of food. It seems like each year we do this, the number of households served by the Food Pantry, the number of monthly visits, the pounds of goods distributed, it all just keeps going up. Imagine coming to school and trying to learn all day on an empty stomach, or trying to focus when you have no idea when your next meal might be or where it's coming from,” teacher Aaron Boche said.

The school’s special education staff has been holding the event long before Boche even started back in 2007.

“They used to actually line the kids up from the old middle school single-file all the way to the Food Pantry doors back when they were in the old building on Pine Street, and hand every item down the line. In 2013, after seeing the success of a penny war for an unrelated event the year before, we decided to add the penny war to our event and include it with the food drive so we could donate and help out the food pantry in two ways,” Boche said.

Boche said the first year of the combined event they raised $3,200 and 800 pounds of food and personal care items.

“It's grown into quite a tradition, and the different classes and grades can get pretty competitive. It's pretty incredible that the school can rally and bring in so many donations in just a few days,” Boche said.

The Nov. 17-21 competition is split between food donations and a penny war. The homeroom that donates the most food gets to join the trip to the pantry to help unload the food. Each grade level also competes in the good old-fashioned penny war. Pennies count as positive money for the grade level, and students can put in bills or other coins as a negative for the other grade levels. An assembly on Nov. 25 reveals the big winner.

“After our initial event we learned some things and advertised better, and added in an all-school assembly to culminate the event. The big draw was that the winning TA's got to play against staff in a battleball game while the rest of the student body cheered them on. Battleball in itself can be a good motivator for the kids, let alone the chance to throw balls at their teachers. We were pretty consistently bringing in about $6,000 each year, but when Covid hit the school the community really came through. In November 2020 we raised $8,300 and just over a ton of donated goods, which was an incredible number we thought we'd never beat. The following year we hit $9,028, which is our current record,” Boche said. “The River Falls community is just amazing at supporting this event, so many donations for such a great cause, and the kids really get into it. Another great thing about the addition of the penny war is that the monetary donations can go so much farther and be spent on the goods that are needed at that time. For every dollar that is donated, the Food Pantry has about $5 of spending power with their different vendors, so the money can go a long way.”

Boche said anyone without students in the building is also welcome to make donations of their own to the drive by dropping them off at the middle school office (230 N. Ninth St.)