MARYSVILLE — Totem Middle School’s post-Thanksgiving food drive collected about as many cans of food for the Marysville Community Food Bank as there are students at the school, according to parents and school officials.

The school’s Leadership classes and ASB officers coordinated the two-week food drive, which began right after the school’s Thanksgiving break. The sixth-grade students collected more cans of food than either the seventh- or the eighth-grade students, with the classes taught by Jeanette Ashley, Tom Sterm and Lisa North coming in first, second and third place for collection numbers, respectively.

“They all collected more than 100 cans of food each,” said Michele Sawyer of the Totem Middle School PTSA. “That’s almost half the number of total cans collected.”

“Every grade helped,” said Alisha Purdom, vice president of the ASB for the eighth-grade class at Totem. “With a lot of people involved, it got done a lot faster.”

Purdom and Piper Holiday, the Totem ASB eighth-grade treasurer, added that Totem’s Leadership, ASB and “Power Team” students are involved in similar charity drives throughout the year, from clothing collections for local children in need to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s “Pennies for Patients” program.

“The Power Team is a student-led and engaged team that addresses student life through events like spirit assemblies and a combination of leadership and grunt-work,” Totem Principal Robert Kalahan said.

“This food drive had a much larger outcome than previous years,” Purdom said. “The student body was really involved.”