St. Leo the Great in Rohrerstown wins inaugural competition
More than 2,300 food items were collected by five Catholic middle schools in three counties during November. The effort assists local food banks in meeting increased demand from clients during a time when SNAP benefits are uncertain.
While many schools typically support holiday food drives this time of year, the extra effort at each school was initiated by the York nonprofit, “Going the Extra Miles,” founded by York Catholic student Miles Murdocca, 14. The charity’s name builds on the scriptural reference to do more than is required to help someone in need (Matthew 5:41).
The nonprofit was formed by Miles in 2024 – with administrative and marketing help from his mother Barb – to spur more volunteerism among youth. The teen serves as its “Chief Fun Officer,” and the timely November Food Fight competition was its first major event to meet its goal: to engage youth in a fun and competitive manner while meeting a community need.
“This Food Fight competition was a trial run to see how it works out, and judging by this effort it seems pretty good,” Miles said while surveying the “food train” entry from middle school students at York Catholic. “The overall goal is to make volunteer projects as fun as possible but also perform an act of service at the same time. They probably had fun designing this – and they collected 900 food items doing it.”
In addition to York Catholic, other middle school classes participating were from St. Joseph School in Hanover, St. Joseph School in York, Our Lady of the Angels School in Columbia, and St. Leo the Great School in Rohrerstown. Recipient food banks benefitting from the student’s work are Catholic Harvest Food Pantry in York, Columbia Food Bank, and Hempfield Area Food Pantry in Landisville. They support clients in York, Lancaster and Adams counties.
“Each participating school was able to choose which food bank would receive their donations, and the winning school receives a traveling trophy,” Miles explained. The winning entry for 2025 was a rocket ship constructed by the 6th grade students at St. Leo the Great School.
School teams solicited and collected their food items throughout early November and then prepared for a competition November 10-11 by creating an original free-standing structure from the food as a special engineering-style STEM challenge component. Four volunteer judges visited each school to view the creation and assess the creativity of the design and the variety of donations. Student teams gave a presentation about their process and answered questions about their collaboration and how they overcame any challenges.
Serving as judges were Margaret Barrett, Associate Superintendent for the Diocese of Harrisburg, and three members of the local business community: Lillian Batista, vice president, Business Banker, S&T Bank; Tyler Tolton, machine learning engineer, Meta; and Casey Thomas, director of property management, LCR.
Batista noted, “This is my first food judging event but our bank participates in many, many community events… I thought ‘Wow, what a great idea!” she said of the Food Fight initiative. “I was excited to participate.”
Tolton added, “This is my first ‘sculpture food drive’ that I’ve been a part of, but I’ve been part of some STEM activities before. I really like the point system and the data-oriented approach, assigning differential points, and they’ve gamified it, which is good, too.”
Miles explained that the origin of the Food Fight competition – and his nonprofit – are connected to his earlier participation in the National Civics Bee, conducted annually by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. The theme for its annual essay contest was to “write about a struggle in your community and a way to solve it,” he said.
He recalled, “I wrote about the lack of volunteerism in the community and I wrote about, what if nonprofits in the area were to go and visit schools, and have fun activities to help kids see that volunteering can be a fun thing, it’s not just a chore. And so when they get older, they’re more likely to do that.”
He also recalls the impact of his own early volunteer experience at Catholic Harvest Food Pantry in York.
“My job was to go into the back, load up the canned food, and then bring it out to the people waiting for it,” he said. “There was a lot more people than I thought would be without food, and that’s what not only sparked this Food Fight idea, but also what I described in my Civics Bee essay. There are easily hundreds of people, just in York County, that need food.”
As far as engaging students more routinely in volunteerism, he added that, “Most schools have required service hours you have to do in order to get to the next grade, so that’s a big incentive. But there’s always time to volunteer…. I don’t think anyone has that packed a schedule. You could probably find 15 minutes and do something.”
Miles shared that the Confirmation saint he picked for himself was St. Vincent de Paul, patron saint of charities and volunteers.
What’s next for Miles and this new nonprofit? “We’re still figuring that out,“ he admits. “After this event, we’ll maybe expand next time to other schools in York County…start small, get bigger. We’ll have to figure out how to involve the younger grades and the high schools. The overall goal is to create volunteer events as fun as possible but also doing an act of service at the same time.”
Learn more about Miles and his nonprofit, Going the Extra Miles, at www.goingtheextramiles.org/. Its tagline is “Small Hands Can Make Big Waves.”
(Patrick Brennan is a freelance reporter for The Catholic Witness. York Catholic photos by Jen Reed, The Catholic Witness, all others courtesy of Going the Extra Miles.)
By Patrick Brennan, The Catholic Witness
