Donations go to campus food pantries for students in need
Students, faculty and staff at Tennessee’s community and technical colleges donated or collected the equivalent of 110,851 food items during the College System of Tennessee’s 26th Annual Food Drive Challenge. The donations go to campus food pantries for students in need and local food programs serving their communities.
The Food Drive Challenge was conceived in 1999 by the Student Government Presidents Council – student leaders from across the state – as a project to help fellow students and others in need. The campus communities have kept the campaign going annually since then – friendly competing to see which can collect the most, in tiers based on college enrollment size. Cash donations are counted as two items for each dollar. Including this year’s collections, more than 1.8 million items of food and funds have been donated and collected over the 26 years of the Challenge.
This year’s campaign wrapped up last week with 23 colleges across the state participating. Congratulations to this year’s Challenge winners in each enrollment tier, with the total items and funds converted to items collected, are:
Community Colleges:
- Tier 1 (smaller enrollments): Roane State Community College – 6,108 items.
- Tier 2 (larger enrollments): Pellissippi State Community College – 49,470 items.
- Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology
- Tier 1: TCAT Hartsville – 3,542 items.
- Tier 2: TCAT Henry/Carroll – 4,850 items.
- Tier 3: TCAT Northwest – 12,312 items.
- Food items and funds are used to stock campus food pantries and also support community food banks, nonprofits that provide food assistance and other local support agencies.
Donations may still be made online through the College System Food Pantry Campaign at https://www.tbr.edu/advancement/college-system-tennessee-food-pantry-campaign.
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