FARMINGTON -- Two and a half tons of food found its way on Friday morning from two elementary schools to a local food pantry.

The 18th annual Helping Hands Food Project, which started nearly a month ago, brought groups of retired teachers and community volunteers together with youngsters from Foster Regional Applied Technology Center and the Mallett and Cascade Brook elementary schools.

High school students Courtney Groder, John Gregoire, and Sasha Hall were a little damp from the heavy rain, but they finished their volunteer work without complaint.

"This is my first year helping with this," Gregoire, an 11th-grade student, said. "It was kind of damp, but it wasn't a problem, really."

Mt. Blue Regional School District volunteer coordinator Pauline Rodrigue helped organize the effort, and she said the students took on extra work without any complaints.

"These high school students been extraordinary," Rodrigue said. "They've worked really, really hard."

The high school students began their morning transporting donations from the two elementary schools to the Community Center, where more than 30 retired teachers and volunteers sorted and repackaged the items. Students then reloaded a truck with the 5,000 pounds of food in 125 boxes and took all the food into the food pantry in Fairbanks.

FRATC teacher Denise Correll supervised her hard-working students as they picked up the last few boxes and carried them into the basement of the building.

This year's Helping Hands project collected the second-highest amount ever, Rodrigue said.

Care and Share Food Cupboard volunteers said the donations would help them feed the 200 families who come each month to their facility in the Fairbanks Neighborhood Schoolhouse.