March 7, 2025 (Haverhill, MA) – Trish Tupaj’s Business 101 students will never look at cereal boxes the same way again. The Whittier Tech students, who are earning college credit through NECC’s Early College Program, collected 3,597 cereal boxes to participate in the #NationalCerealDay. On Friday, March 7, they celebrated the occasion by lining up the boxes through the halls and gymnasium of Whittier Tech and knocking them over like dominoes.

“We set a goal of 2025 boxes and we were wondering if we were going to be able to reach that, but the students went above and beyond,” said Tupaj.

Students were tasked with making flyers, approaching local businesses, and leveraging their own networks to get donations. Donation boxes were also located throughout both the NECC and WT campuses. One student, Anthony Motolla, collected 675 boxes.

“I mostly used social media and had my family share on their social media,” he said of his efforts.

Tupaj first got the idea for a “cereal challenge” in 2023 when she was a high school teacher in Connecticut. That effort collected nearly 1600 boxes. When she began teaching Early College classes at NECC the following year, she was eager to continue the collaborative community service project. She said she was proud to see how the students and the community rallied behind the idea and has already started planning for next year.

All of the cereal boxes are now on the way to food banks that serve the 11 communities that send students to Whittier Tech.

Learn more about Early College at NECC by visiting the webpage.