The University of Alabama won the 18th annual Beat Auburn Beat Hunger food drive this year, collecting 237,079 pounds of food for the West Alabama Food Bank as compared to the 134,102 pounds raised by Auburn University for the East Alabama Food Bank.
Alabama’s total was the third-highest amount of food collected in the history of the drive and the win was UA’s eighth.
“We’re incredibly happy with the results of Beat Auburn Beat Hunger,” said Andres Mendieta, public relations director for the food drive, “It’s fantastic to see how much we were able to improve from last year. We worked as hard as we could, and it’s certainly good to see over 350,000 pounds of food going to people in Alabama.”
Mendieta credited the success of the drive to its director, Charlotte Brown.
“I want to thank Charlotte Brown for being such a great leader,” Mendieta said. “Her work ethic is absolutely astonishing, and she’s the main reason we beat Auburn so handily.”
The drive included a variety of contests to attract potential donors. Among them was a pie-throwing contest and a letter-writing event that kicked off the event. After an election in which participants paid to vote, Crimson Tide offensive lineman Barrett Jones practiced his sportsmanship by accepting a pie to the face.
The “Stamp Out Hunger” letter-writing event invited students to write letters to family and friends requesting donations. Approximately 400 letters had been written when the contest ended.
Volunteers contributed a great deal to the food drive, particularly during the “Can-or Treat” Halloween event when they dressed in costumes and went trick-or-treating but, instead of asking for candy, collected canned food for the drive.
The food drive also featured a photo shoot competition with Big Al that took place on Nov. 2. Participants were asked to pose in a photo with Big Al while displaying cans of food.
Afterwards, the photos were uploaded to the Beat Auburn Beat Hunger Facebook page and the contestant whose photo received the most “likes” was given a $100 Bama Dining gift card.
A 5K race at the UA campus was also incorporated into the drive. The race elicited 210 participants who ran and walked over a 3.1-mile course through the University.
The food drive also included a blood drive from the American Red Cross. The drive lasted from Nov. 14to Nov. 16 and, for every unit of blood that was donated, Sam’s Club donated one non-perishable food item.
Virginia Tamondong’s Engineering 142 class also participated in the drive by baking a large cake designed to replicate Bryant-Denny Stadium with the help of Bama Dining, then handed out pieces before the football game against LSU on Nov. 5.
Sarah Van Voorhis, a freshman majoring in engineering, helped with the event.
“On Saturday, we gave out slices of cake to help raise awareness for Beat Auburn Beat Hunger,” Voorhis said. “With our help, BABH raised over $500, which is the equivalent of 1,000 pounds of food.”
The food drive campaign ended with a table set-up at the Ferguson Center on Nov. 18, where 90.7 The Capstone provided entertainment.
