St. Alphonsus School Sets Record with Thanksgiving Pie Donations to Food Pantry

in Wexford made a record-setting pie donation to the North Hills Community Outreach food pantry last weekend for the “Turkey on Every Table” program. 

The 215 assorted pies, valued at $2,580, were donated by students and parishioners as part of a school-wide competition. NHCO, which serves about 450 families a month, will include the pies in its Thanksgiving meal packages. 

“They had never received so many pies for their Thanksgiving distribution,” said St. Alphonsus Market Day co-chair Audrey Dunn.

Dunn and co-chair Kristen Wentling involved the students by organizing a friendly competition between the grade levels to encourage Thanksgiving charity and promote the school’s Market Day fundraising program. 

More than 150 students participated in the Market Day pie-buy with the eighth-grade boys’ class coming in first place with 25 pie purchases. The boys are all in Jean Novak’s homeroom and won a pizza “pie” party for their efforts.

Service is an integral part of the curriculum at St. Alphonsus. Now entering its ninth year, the school’s Good Samaritan Program assigns required service hours to each grade level. Many students exceed those requirements by 50 to 100 or more hours and are publicly recognized at the school’s year-end Mass with special certificates.

Parishioners also joined in the program and purchased Market Day pies. Dunn and Wentling held a pie-tasting after a recent Sunday Mass to promote the project. The school has successfully partnered with the fundraising food cooperative company Market Day for more than 15 years. 

The school is holding an open house this Thursday from 9 a.m. until 10:30 a.m. St. Alphonsus was recently featured in a KDKA-TV segment by Dave Crawley highlighting fourth-grade teacher Shirley Bates’ “Beatles’ Fridays” program.

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