Community Corner

Boy, 6, Turns School Project Into Aid for Long Valley Families

100 pledges, $300 and food pantry shelves stocked for local families in need.

Cooper Murray is pretty ambitious. He’s also caring and wants to help others.

Oh, and he’s only 6 years old.

But age didn’t stop the Long Valley resident from making an enormous impact on his community recently, as he filled the Washington Township Food Pantry shelves, helping others in need.

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The food pantry, located in the Long Valley Presbyterian Church, was at a critical low in recent weeks, as reported on Patch, but a community surge helped bring the center back up to speed.

Murray was a very large part of that.

Find out what's happening in Long Valleywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

For the 100th day of school, which recently passed, students were tasked with collecting 100 of “something.” Rather than collect 100 rocks, pennies, toothpicks, Murray sought out to collect 100 pledges for the food pantry.

The first-grader hit his target of 100 pledges, but what came beyond that was nothing that could be graded by a school teacher.

More than $300 came from the pledges, which Murray used to go grocery shopping. Using the list of needed goods from the pantry, Murray brought six boxes to the church. The amount is equal to feeding six families for an entire week.

Whatever grade Connor Murray received for completing his project doesn’t really matter. The families he helped would certainly put him at the head of the class. 


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