In his 12-year career as a physical education teacher, Scott Moroney has worn pants only once. He opts instead for shorts year–round to fit his active teaching duties at North Mianus Elementary School.
But when last year’s Thanksgiving Food Drive goal was met, Moroney wore pants for the first time in his career as the prize for his students for donating food items to Neighbor to Neighbor.
This year, the ante was raised for the third annual “Fowl” Shooting Contest and Thanksgiving Food Drive.
“If the kids brought in 1,500 items, we told them we’d wear a dress for the day,” gym teachers Pat Prisinzano and Scott Moroney said. “We had turkeys purchased that we are set to donate and our finalists will present them to Neighbor to Neighbor.”
The students exceeded their goal by 250 cans.
Moroney, who kept score of the competition in a floral design dress, said that in the event’s first two years there were only a few hundred donations. This year, their dress-up deal with the students helped raise the greatest number of items in the contest’s history.
“In our first year doing this, we collected about 500 or 600 items,” Moroney said. “Last year, the donations were kind of slow. We challenged them last year to get to 1,000, and then I would finally wear pants to school. They did it, so this year we set the goal of 1,500 for dresses.”
Students in fourth and fifth grade participated in the preliminary rounds of free–throw shooting in their normally-scheduled gym classes last week.
Eight finalists, four boys and four girls, took turns going head-to-head for bragging rights and to donate a turkey on their behalf to Neighbor to Neighbor before a gymnasium full of peers and teachers cheering them on.
Both P.E. teachers say they are taking suggestions for next year’s contest, but want the event to focus on teaming up with local nonprofits.
“The whole premise of this is to come together and to teach how to give back,” Moroney said. “There won’t be makeup, but we’ll up the ante for next year too.”
