First-grader Ian Walck, inspired by his school's food bank, decided to celebrate his recent birthday in a different way by asking his guests to bring canned goods instead of gifts to help children in Summit Hill who may need food.

"I wanted to collect enough food to stack taller than me," said Walck during his presentation of food to the Summit Hill Food Pantry. That stack turned out to be 120 nonperishable food items that were donated by his party guests and family to celebrate his sixth birthday in September. Walck, son of Jesse and Melinda Walck of Summit Hill, asked his guests to bring food items instead of gifts."I saw the food bank at my school and I wanted to help the kids in my town too," Walck said. "It was fun to collect the food and I'm happy to help other kids."Walck's father, Jesse, who also is the president of the Summit Hill Borough Council, contacted Debra Ranck of the Summit Hill Heritage Center to arrange the donation. "After we arranged a time to drop off the food," said Ian's mother, Melinda, "we loaded the food into boxes and placed them in the car to bring them to the center."Ranck met the Walcks, including Ian's younger brother Logan, at the food pantry in the basement of the Heritage Center and after unloading the boxes of food from the car, she took inventory of the donations and thanked Ian for his presentation."I think it was wonderful.I was very surprised," she said about the donation. "This is a lot of food (for one person to donate) and it will go to the 150 families we service every month. What's nice is some of the goodies in the donation are food items the families do not normally receive."Walck said, "I want to challenge all the other kids in my class to beat me and collect more food items."Ranck said the Summit Hill Food Pantry accepts commercially packaged and canned food items which can be donated by contacting the Center on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 570-645-7561.