Food drive to benefit three communities

Three-school rivalry spurs canned food drive competition.

By Angela Case

Published Feb. 12, 2009

This basketball season, the rivalries between the University of Kansas, Kansas State University and MU will intensify, but this time for charity.

The three schools are in a bragging rights competition to see who can collect the most canned goods for local charities.

Each team will put collection boxes at stadium entrances before the games they play against each other. Each school will also set up a collection site on campus so students who do not have tickets to the games can still make donations.

Rachel Anderson, a member of the Student Activities Union at KU who organized the event, said she got the idea for the competition at a conference she attended last semester.

"There's a couple of community colleges in Kansas that do it," she said, but this is the first time three large schools have participated in this type of event.

Anderson hopes the drive will be popular enough to continue in future years.

"I thought it would be fun and interesting to involve more than one school," Anderson said. "It's a friendly rivalry, and it benefits all three communities: Kansas State's community, KU's community and Mizzou's community."

If it is successful this year, it will be an annual event, she said.

Dan Grote, the Zou Crew coordinator who mobilized the event at MU, said the donations collected at each school will benefit a different charity. MU students' contributions will be donated to the Central Missouri Food Bank.

Anderson said donations collected at KU will be given to the United Way of Lawrence.

Grote said mobilizing the campaign at MU was a last minute effort, but he accepted the challenge because he knew it was a great cause.

Grote said the other two schools have had more time to gather their entire communities, and because MU has had less time to prepare, he is counting on the students to make up the difference.

"The basketball team is having a great season," he said. "Hopefully we can translate that into collecting more cans."

Zou Crew coordinator Brad Fischer said organizers were not given much time to promote the event before the KU-MU game, but they plan to give the event more publicity in time for the Kansas State-MU game on Feb. 25.

"We contacted the guys in marketing (in the athletic department), we contacted student season ticket holders and I sent an e-mail to Zou Crew members," Fischer said. "We might do more for the K-state game since we've got more time."

Grote also created a Facebook event promoting the cause. Fischer is a former member of The Maneater staff.

Fischer also expressed interest in the food drive because it served a larger purpose than just friendly competition.

"It's really good to take this rivalry and make it benefit the people in Columbia and Lawrence," he said.

Fischer also said while the emphasis is on collecting canned goods, any non-perishable food items will do. Collection bins were placed in front of the student entrance to Mizzou Arena on Thursday. They will also be placed in front of the entrance before the Feb. 25 game against Kansas State. Students can drop off donations at Brady Commons between until Feb.19.