Haliburton Highlands Secondary School won the 16th annual Trillium Lakelands District School Board’s Great Grain Challenge (formerly the Great Pasta Challenge) for a third consecutive year with close to three points per student.

This challenge is organized by the G7 Student Senate – a group of students representing each secondary school elected by their peers.

According to the TLDSB website HHSS finished with more than double the points of the next closest school Huntsville High School which finished with 1.16 points.

There were seven schools in the challenge: HHSS Huntsville Bracebridge Muskoka Lakes Secondary School Fenelon Falls Secondary School Gravenhurst High School I.E. Weldon Secondary School and Lindsay Collegiate Vocational Institute.

The win is owed to the community and the school volunteering students student trustee Madeline Hopkins faculty such as Brianne Pockett and especially local merchants such as Steve Todd of Todd’s Independent Grocer and Brad Park of Haliburton Foodland.

Hopkins credited the local grocery store owners for their contribution particularly since students from other areas were not able to secure support from their local grocers.

The challenge’s name change was attributed to a new points system allocating two points for each whole grain product and one for a grain product.

The Red Hawks finished with a total of 1337 points contributing the greatest single total of the entire 3588 points collected by the seven participating high schools.

Although this result is a great success the real winners are the food banks in the area each of the schools is located.