Riverview Junior High choir donates to Utah Food Bank

About 300 Riverview Junior High choir members collected more than 3,500 pounds of food and donated it to the Utah Food Bank.

The choir also decorated 1,000 cardboard boxes to deliver food, and several students volunteered at the food bank, sorting donations, choir director Becky Ivory said.

“Each term, they choose a project where they can serve other people and make a difference,” Ivory said. “Our initial goal was 1,000 pounds and we exceeded it so easily, we set another goal for each class to reach 1,000 pounds.”

Two of the four choir classes met that goal, with the other classes coming close, Ivory said.

“Choosing to help the Utah Food Bank was an easy choice,” eighth-grader Emilee Page said. “Everyone there is always in need of help, and it’s an easy thing for us to do and get people involved in.”

Emilee and a friend went door-to-door collecting food donations from neighbors. She said they filled a wagon at least four times and brought in more than 300 pounds.

“I get a good feeling when I help others, and it’s nice to do when people who are in need get the help,” she said.

Her classmate, ninth-grader Lia Gale, agrees,

“Service helps us understand the world, which is good especially at our age,” she said. “We’ve helped people in our community and around the world.”

Lia said the choir program, and specifically the Harmony 4 Humanity choir group, made and gave rice warmers to seniors when they caroled last holiday season to the Murray Golden Living Center, and they donated 1,600 CDs to the Primary Children’s Medical Center to create a music library for patients. Recently, the group also made sock puppets for the Murray Boys & Girls Club.

On an international level, they held benefit concerts and sold donuts to raise money for one of their counterparts in Indonesia that suffered from a 7.6-magnitude earthquake. Riverview students raised enough funds to rebuild the Indonesian school and help its community.

For the past few years, the Harmony 4 Humanity group has been exchanging music and cultural videos with other students throughout the world said Ivory, who created the exchange. All the members of Harmony for Humanity are part of iearn.org, an organization of more than 30,000 teachers worldwide who want to collaborate.

“My favorite thing about the Harmony 4 Humanity program is to watch kids’ minds expand as they realize that there is a whole world of wonderful people out there who have a large variety of lifestyles and cultures, and yet are all the same when it comes to the things that matter most,” she said. “Our goal has always been to make a positive difference in the world through music. We get to help those around us and enrich our own lives, all at the same time. I want my students to know that they can make a difference.”