Children celebrate 100th day of school with food pantry donations
Reporter Staff
February 19, 2026
First-graders in Gina Cattrano's classroom at Central School gather around their donations of salt and pepper before the start of the 100th Day of Giving celebration Feb. 13. The schoolwide community service project, in its 21st year, collected and delivered 2,000 items to the South Berwick Community Food Pantry. (Staff photo)
Two thousand kitchen staples from taco shells and brownie mixes to dish soap were trucked Friday afternoon to the South Berwick Community Food Pantry, all of it bounty from Central School’s 21st annual 100th Day of Giving celebration that restocks the shelves every year.
Classroom after classroom of excited children paraded into the school gym Feb. 13, where earlier each class had arranged their assigned item into fanciful displays, including a nearly six-foot tall clock tower of cracker boxes and more than one heart, Friday being the day valentines were exchanged with classmates.
The project initiated two decades ago by second grade teacher Pam Mulchaey, now a reading specialist at the school, each year marks the 100th day of the school year with a food donation project that is weeks in the making at every grade level, pre-K through third.
The effort began in January, when the pantry staff provided a shopping list of some 20 items frequently requested by patrons, which were divided among the classrooms. During the following month, as students and parents contributed their designated item, a thermometer outside each classroom showed its progress toward the 100-count giving goal, some of them surpassed.
Finally, on the 100th Day of Giving, a group of third-grade “ambassadors” facilitated the celebration assembly, describing how the pantry operates with volunteers and donations, who uses it and why, and what food and household items are stocked in the building at 47 Ross St. that had once housed the town ambulance.
Longtime pantry volunteer Dave Stansfield, in the audience for the celebration with other pantry volunteers and a nearly full house of parents, young siblings, grandparents and friends, said he is amazed and impressed by all the moving parts the project requires but not surprised by Mulchaey’s leadership.
“She’s one of my favorite people in the world,” said Stansfield, who had managed the community pantry for 15 years and worked with Mulchaey there. “She’s just such a nice person, but also so competent and so good at organization. These students are very lucky to have her.”