SANDPOINT — How much benefit can come from one grant? 

Staff at Sagle Elementary School, Bonner Community Food Bank and nonprofit Underground Kindness pushed the boundaries Friday in an event that offered students a valuable learning experience and made critical goods available to locals in need. 

Using a $500 grant, students in Kristi Terrell’s fifth grade class visited Super 1 Foods and shopped for shelf-stable items within a preassigned budget. The resulting goods were immediately donated to the food bank to be later distributed as needed.

Terrell devised the exercise as an opportunity to help students practice working with decimals, a fixture of fifth grade math. By examining prices in advance, the elementary schoolers could add up the cost of items on their grocery list to make sure they utilized their stipends to the fullest extent. 

“The question with math is always, ‘When are we going to use this in real life?’” she said. “This is how math works in real life. You have a budget, and you have to stick to it.” 

To secure the necessary funding, Terrell pitched the idea to Underground Kindness, a local organization that often provides grants for education initiatives. The nonprofit jumped onboard; founder Lindy Lewis ended up having a personal hand in the exercise by helping students while they shopped as a volunteer chaperone. 

Before students went to the grocery store, staff from the food bank visited Terrell’s class to explain their organization’s needs and teach students how to seek value at the supermarket. 

In all, students turned the $488.15 spent in the exercise into 293 pounds of food and supplies for Bonner Community Food Bank. 

    In addition to delivering goods to the food bank, the event taught students how to work with decimals, build a budget and seek value at the grocery store.