District 200 students collect food, deliver pies in the face

It seems like a pie-in-the-sky dream that one middle school could collect enough food to feed 600 underprivileged people.

For Wheaton's Franklin Middle School, the dream was more of a pie in the face.

About 700 students packed the gym at Franklin for a Friday morning school spirit assembly. Staff honored all the students involved in sports and other extracurricular activities, but the students were only there for two things: charity and perhaps a little taste of vengeance.

At the start of April, the students began collecting food for the Milton Township Food Pantry. Back in October, the Daily Herald reported the pantry consistently has had trouble keeping its shelves stocked with enough food to feed the 600 or so people who need its support every month.

But the school's early efforts at collecting food weren't very inspired. By the end of the first weekend, the students had collected only 94 pounds of food.

That's when Assistant Principal Joe Kish decided to make a personal sacrifice to inspire the students -- his face.

One of Kish's jobs at the school is to be a disciplinarian. Still, he agreed to take a pie in the face from the students at each grade level who brought in the most food.

The next week's food collection weighed in at 325 pounds. By Friday, the students netted more than 1,800 pounds of food total.

So after the student accolades died down, out came the blue tarp over the gym floor. In the middle sat a single metallic folding chair that would serve as a baked-goods gallows for Kish.

Principal Susan Wolfe took the microphone and reminded everyone that the assembly was to honor the great things the students had done during the school year.

"One of the great things you've done this month is bring in all that food," Wolfe said. "As you know, one of the incentives for bringing in all that food was being able to hit Mr. Kish in the face with a pie."

Cue the raucous chants and screaming.

"Throw the pie! Throw the pie!"

Onto the tarp Kish strutted to the tune of "I Want Candy." He wore a "Vote for Pedro" T-shirt, shorts and his only protection from the oncoming storm -- pink swim goggles.

The best food-collecting students in the school lined up, each with a clownlike pie of fluff. Then, like a Little Debbie assembly line gone haywire, the students bombarded Kish with a total of five pies.

When it was over, Kish's face looked like a massacred Pillsbury Doughboy, but with the smile still intact.

"Remember, this wasn't about throwing pies," Kish told the students afterward. "It was about helping people and working together as a school."