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After being tasked with collecting food for charity, a group of Dunedin secondary school students asked what else they could do.
They decided to head into the local community to assist young children with their can collecting for Presbyterian Support Otago’s (PSO) annual Octacan campaign.
The initiative supports the Family Works food bank by collecting cans to stock their pantry.
King’s High School teacher James McPherson said the student council had looked after the collection the past few years and senior leader Nived Menon, 16, wanted to do more.
‘‘So we had the idea to reach out to local primary and intermediate schools and see if they wanted a hand with their can collection ... and so the cans are already all counted and sorted for PSO.’’
They also helped pupils sort cans into different food groups.
This year, they were helping St Clair and Bathgate Park Schools.
Next year they hoped to extend the programme to other schools in the area.
In total, the King’s students and St Clair School pupils counted 155 cans donated by the primary school.
Mr McPherson said it was good for the students to get out in the local community.
It was also good to connect with the younger pupils, especially in schools where some of the children might someday attend King’s, he said.
St Clair School pupil Alec Fry, 6, was closest to guessing the amount of cans, with 90, and Finnigan Jarvis, 5, was the farthest with a guess of 1 million.
Tomorrow, the cans will be taken to the lower Octagon where they will be recounted.
King’s would take their own cans, as well as those from Bathgate Park and St Clair Schools.
They would also help count cans and collect cash donations on the day.
Last year more than 17,500 cans were collected.