Students at Wilson got a very special treat in April with the chance to have McDonald’s for lunch. Here’s how we worked together to turn the idea of McDonald’s as a food day into a reality. In fact, Mr. Schmidt even said that he used to have McDonald’s at school when he went to Tamaques. He could choose from nuggets and fries or a burger and fries.

We decided to start a petition and get as many student signatures as we could. Oliver went around during lunch asking kids ranging from 1st to 4th grade if they wanted to sign their name on the petition, while Reid went to the 5th graders. We got 221 signatures total!

Then we scheduled a meeting with Ms. Marsh to talk about the idea and show her the petition. Ms. Marsh decided to invite us to the PTO meeting to propose this idea.

We then got to work on a Google Slides presentation. First, we had to explain how we would order, pay, and deliver the food to Wilson. We went to the Garwood McDonald’s and spoke to the manager, Esther. She said she would be able to provide Wilson with the orders for lunch by 11:00 AM, giving the parent volunteers time to deliver it for the first lunch period. They would arrange the orders into two time slots like they do for pizza so that no one’s food is cold during the later lunch periods.

Then, we had to explain why Wilson students, especially 5th graders, deserved McDonald’s for lunch. First of all, the kids at Wilson like to change things up for lunch once in a while. Most importantly, we 5th graders have had a rough time. We had to deal with Covid for our first three years, and then our 4th grade field trip to Philadelphia got canceled. This delectable food day would really help to make our last year here amazing.

At the meeting, the PTO approved the idea and we prevailed. McDonald’s was coming to Wilson! For our first McDonald’s day inApril, 276 students at Wilson (out of 353 total students) ordered lunch. The most popular lunch item was the chicken nuggets. And it seemed like nearly everyone got a side of French fries. We had 278 orders!

Even better than McDonald’s fries, though, was the reaction from the students. “It was special because we got fast food in school,” said Hannah Launchi, 3S. “I loved the nuggies,” said Jordan Markowitz, 1M.

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This article originally appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of Wilson World, which is reported and written entirely by its students and is re-printed with permission. Photos are courtesy of Wilson Elementary School.