Campus-wide hunger drive strives for world record

By bringing a few cans to Greene Street today, you could be a part of breaking a Guinness World Record.

USC is seeking to break the record for the largest food drive for a non-charitable organization within a 24-hour period with its Beat Hunger campaign.

“We knew that many organizations around campus held food drives,” said Cynthia Steele, marketing manager for Carolina Dining. “We wanted to focus on what the University community can do together.”

The idea for the campaign came after hearing about Harvest Hope’s great need for food donations. 

According to Denise Holland, CEO of Harvest Hope, there has been a 100 percent increase in the demand for food over the last year.

Carolina Dining holds a food drive every fall and spring, but after hearing about the great need, they decided to join forces with other organizations on campus.

“We started forming a spur-of-the-moment campaign,” Steele said.
Chi Psi fraternity, the rest of the Greek community, RHA, Student Government and

Carolina Productions all helped with the campaign.  

“It made sense to consolidate this into one united effort,” said Kate Shelton, director of conference and event services with the Continuing Education department. “We wanted to unite different departments and student groups.”

As the group began to brainstorm different ways to create a large campaign, Nov. 12 was selected because of the date for the Guinness record. The committee also noted that this was near the Florida game and decided to host a “Beat Hunger! Beat Florida” pep rally.

Between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. today, students can drop off their cans to help “stuff the bus” in front of Russell House. From 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. there will be a carnival with games and prizes to encourage students to donate to Harvest Hope. 

With five cans or $5, students will receive tickets to play games such as ring toss, wheel of fortune and golf putt. Then students will be entered for prizes, which will include a special T-shirt for the Florida game.

Campaigns in residence halls and in the Greek Village have been taking place all week. All of the cans collected at locations around campus will be collected today and brought to the bus.

The idea to “stuff a bus”  came from a collaboration with vehicle management and parking services. With large food drives, there is always the challenge of getting the donated food to the food bank. By placing all of the food on the bus, this solves the transportation problem.

The current Guinness record is 388,381 pounds of food. The University will need to collect approximately 600,000 cans to beat this record. 

“We want the University as a whole to give back to the community where we live,” Steele said. “Our hope is that many more South Carolina families will have the comfort of knowing where their next meal is coming from.”

For more information, visit http://www.saeu.sc.edu/cec/beathunger/.