In the SouperBowl, these young Eagles and Chiefs fans are all winners
When it came to helping people in need, the kids in both these schools were champs all the way.
Everyone knows Sunday is the Super Bowl.
But barely a week ago, two schools — one in Eagles country and the other in Chiefs Kingdom — were tasked with a challenge. They met it head-on. In that brief period, hundreds and hundreds of cans of edibles have been piling up at James Johnson Elementary School in Cherry Hill and Timber Sage Elementary in Olathe, Kan. Challenge videos have been exchanged. Even some gentle trash talk has been uttered.
Because this hasn’t been just any food drive.
This is the SouperBowl. And these kids, like their Eagles and their Chiefs, are all in.
“The response has been probably the biggest response we’ve had for any fund-raiser, any event I can remember, and I’ve been here almost 10 years now,” said Johnson Elementary principal Jared Peltzman.
Pumped up students have been singing the Eagles fight song waiting for the school buses, and then going home to spend their own money to buy canned goods, he said.
The same kind of thing has been happening with the Timber Sage kids, their families, and neighbors.
“We see some of our littlest kids coming in, and they almost look like they’re going to fall over. We’re like, ‘Hey, do you have some cans in your backpack today?’ ” said Timber Sage principal Meka Bauer.
In Olathe and Cherry Hill, parents, grandparents and other folks have pitched in to support the SouperBowl. The other night, someone left soup cans on Bauer’s doorstep, and Peltzman has a picture of a student with a wagon collecting canned goods from neighbors.
A week ago, these kids and their communities didn’t even know each other. The parent-teacher organizations of each school separately got the idea for a friendly, Super Bowl-inspired competition that would also give the children the opportunity to do something positive for their communities. The principals gave their blessing, and the schools found each other via social media.
Since then, spirited videos have gone back and forth. Little Chiefs supporters have watched Johnson’s owl mascot JJ attempt climbing a greased pole in a Rocky-themed dispatch, while mini Eagles fans have gotten a taste of heartland pep rallies, complete with megaphones and Chiefs red gear. Timber Sage sent Cherry Hill a Chiefs cake — which the Jersey school’s mascot decorated green. Peltzman admitted to calling seven companies to try to get a Fly Eagles Fly banner put up outside Timber Sage.
“Not a single one called us back,” he said.
But as fun as the friendly competition has been, the SouperBowl has been about much more than that.
“It’s been a great teachable moment to have all those times where students and teachers are just chitchatting about the impact this is going to have on our Spring Hill Food Pantry, who’s had a bit of trouble stocking the shelves this year,” said Bauer.
“It’s doing something good for others, which is the foundation of what we do,” said Peltzman, whose school is donating its goods to the Unforgotten Haven food pantry in Blackwood. “It’s building character.”
That seems to be a lesson the students at both schools have nailed.
Mady Gabel, a Timber Sage fourth grader said, “It is impressive how many cans we were able to collect in such a small amount of time, and that is all going to help people in need.”
She loves her team, too: “Play hard and win! Go, Chiefs!”
Andrew Langman, a Cherry Hill fifth grader, said he’s hoping to see his favorite Eagle linebacker, Haason Reddick from nearby Camden, “get one more sack.” All the kids would love to see their school win, but “donating the food is the most important thing,” he said. “It’s been a really fun way to compete against the other school but also do it for a good cause.”
Those will be the words to remember Friday. That’s when the winning school is revealed. It’s going to be tough:
The losing school’s principal will have to wear their opposing team’s jersey and root for them Sunday in the Super Bowl.
Repeat after the kids: All for a good cause.
Editor’s note: Here are the results of the wager.
The winner is…Both schools.
”In the end, it got kind of confusing. We didn’t know how to call it,” said Cherry Hill principal Jared Peltzman on Friday. Both schools received community contributions, as well as the cans the students collected.Cherry Hill got a large donation from Ravitch’s Shop-Rite in its township, Peltzman said. That brought the final tally of cans at 11,045 for Johnson Elementary, and 9,201 cans for Timber Sage, Peltzman said. But without the community donations, the total cans just collected by the school students were 6,125 for Johnson and 7,684 for Timber Sage.”We decided to make it so they both walked away feeling like winners,” he said, of the solution he and Timber Sage principal Meka Bauer’s came up with.
The principals decided to share the penalty wager. Peltzman said he’ll wear a Chiefs jersey for the first half of the Super Bowl, Bauer will don a Eagles one, and they will each root for the opposing team. Then they’ll go back to being fans for their real favorites during the second half.