LYNNFIELD — For the fifth year, fourth-grader Alex Hayes, his mother Annmarie Hayes, and his Summer Street School classmates collected food to give to The Open Door, a food pantry in Gloucester.

Alex and his classmates have gone year by year, piling food into The Open Door truck, creating their own tradition within the school. This year was special, as the class will be graduating and heading to middle school.

Annmarie said that this year’s food collection was probably the biggest they’d ever had.

“We started in kindergarten, and we just kept it up every year, which was great. And then we started including the whole grade,” she said, gathering up bags to prepare for the pantry truck’s arrival.

She noted that the idea first formed when the kindergarten class was learning about philanthropy, leading to her and Alex getting involved with The Open Door.

“They gave us a list of things we might want to do with our kids, and he and I talked, and I talked about how the pantry is people helping people by giving them food,” she said.

Two years ago, Alex ended up needing heart surgery, and Annmarie said that, despite the surgery, he still wanted to organize the drive with his class.

“We got to focus on something else that wasn’t the scary stuff,” she said.

She continued that Summer Street School had been “awesome” when it came to getting the drive together and working with her to coordinate with the pantry.

The fourth-grade class, despite the blazing sun, got right to work when the truck arrived, grabbing bags and placing them into the bin to be loaded.

Annmarie has hope that they can try and continue the tradition as her son prepares to head to Lynnfield Middle School.