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Local boy’s birthday tuna drive brings in record haul for Marseilles pantry · Illinois Valley - Shaw Local

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  Speaker 1: Local boy's birthday tuna drive brings in recert hall for
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  Marseille Pantry. Written by Bill Frescoes, this article is being
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  read by an automated voice brought to you by Everlett.
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  The Marseille Food Pantry saw a record turnout during its
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  annual tuna drive this weekend as a local boy turned
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  a birthday tradition into his biggest success yet. Maximilian Clayson,
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  who's turning eight in two weeks, saw exactly one, three
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  hundred and fifty cans of tuna get brought to him
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  to stack up on Saturday morning. Maximilian's mother and pantry operator,
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  Carolyn Klausen, explained the tradition started years ago when he
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  was probably not even two. He started stacking tuna cans
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  here at the food pantry for fun. She said. We'd
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  put them in a box on the shelf and he
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  would just stack them. That interest followed him everywhere, even
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  to the grocery store. When we'd go to Kroger, he'd
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  see the tuna on the shelves and start stacking them
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  there too, she said. However, the drive itself began as
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  a way to give back born premature Maximilian's family received
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  support from others early on, so they wanted to make
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  it a tradition to donate back for his birthday. By
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  age six, the idea had become his own. The last
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  three years, we've done it because he's wanted to, she said.
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  Even as a toddler, Maximilian imagined helping others as he'd
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  ride around on his toy John deeretractor while pretending to
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  deliver the tuna to people in need. He's always liked helping,
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  Carolyn Clayson said, and something about stacking those tuna cans
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  certainly get him excited for it. Klassen also said she
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  was very thankful for the community's support, noting that people
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  came from across the Illinois Valley, including one supporter who
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  traveled from Spring Valley to donate, and also an anonymous
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  local who contributed one seventy five cans.