Food Drives

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Description

For many years, competitive food drives were part of Kansas Gamma's portfolio of active service projects. District Nine chapters used to compete against each other every year to see which chapter could collect and donate the most food in one week. There were a few basic rules: Competing chapters could not pair up with other local organizations; the food had to be collected within one week; and advertisement could only begin one week in advance of the food drive. All food and cash was donated to the Flint Hills Breadbasket.

Kansas Gamma followed these rules and found a creative way to get the whole college on board with their district competition. They did so by setting up an internal competition amongst the departments in the College of Engineering. Kansas Gamma would track how many can-equivalents were donated by each department and normalize the scores by dividing each count by the respective department's total number of students.

According to a 2009 advisor's guide written by Richard B. Hayter (SD-B '65), former Associate Dean for External Affairs, long-time Chief Advisor and 2008 National Outstanding Advisors of the chapter, the Department of Architectural Engineering and Construction Science always donated the largest quantity of food, but the largest quantity per enrolled students was donated by the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering.

District Nine Winners

2000 - Kansas Gamma
2001 - Kansas Gamma
2002 - Arkansas Alpha
2003 - Oklahoma Alpha
2004 - Kansas Gamma
2005 - Kansas Gamma
2006 - Kansas Gamma
2007 - Kansas Gamma
2008 - Kansas Gamma
2009 - Kansas Gamma
2010 - Kansas Gamma
2011 - Oklahoma Alpha
2012 - Kansas Gamma
2013 - Kansas Gamma
2014 - Kansas Gamma

Articles

ENGINEERING HONOR SOCIETY SPONSORS FOOD DRIVE COMPETITION, TAKES DONATIONS FOR CHARITY

November 15, 2006

Nicole Johnston - KANSAS STATE COLLEGIAN

The members of Tau Beta Pi, the national engineering honor society, are having a food drive to raise money for charity. The food drive began Monday and will run through Friday. The drive is a competition among the chapters of Tau Beta Pi. Each year a member of the chapter is randomly selected to be in charge of the food drive. Elizabeth Voight, junior in mechanical engineering, was elected by the vice president of the organization to be in charge of the food drive.

She said the competition has strict rules. Members only are allowed to collect for one week, to advertise from one week up until the end and cannot work with anyone else to sponsor it. All the money collected will be given to the Flint Hills breadbasket. Not only is the chapter competing with other chapter, but they also are using the food drive as a task in initiation for new members.

"There are a couple different service tasks they have to do while being initiated," Voigt said. "Mostly we accept cans, but we accept cash donations too." She said 50 cents is equivalent to a can, and $1 equals a boxed good. At the end of the week the chapter will tally up all the items and cash they receive. Voigt said once they have the numbers, they will take the total amount collected and divide it by the number of students in the department. The winner of the competition will be announced the week after the competition.

ENGINEERS COMPETE FOR CHARITY

November 21, 2005

Hannah Crippen - KANSAS STATE COLLEGIAN

Taking a box drom Dan Wright, senior in electrical engineering, Matt Edwards, fifth-year senior in architectural engineering, finds a place for a box of canned goods while loading up a truck to deliver the food Friday afternoon outside Seaton Hall for the Flint Hills Breadbasket. Tau Beta Pi and the College of Engineering collected food for a week to donate.

Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society, and the College of Engineering collected 2,500 pounds of food and $497 for the Flint Hills Breadbasket Friday afternoon. Filling up two truckloads of donated food, each of the eight departments in the College of Engineering competed to see who could collect the most cans. The winners were the departments of Biological and Agricultural Engineering and Architectural Engineering and Construction Science.

Ryan White, senior in mechanical engineering and vice president-elect of Tau Beta PI, participated in Friday's event in Seaton Hall. He said the engineers have been doing this for years right before Thanksgiving. Depending on what type of food item the organization receives, it will go toward a Thanksgiving or holiday food basket or stored for the winter months and distributed. About 2,000 baskets are given out each year.

Natascha Phillip, executive director of the Flint Hills Breadbasket, said the food baskets contain everything a family would need for an entire holiday meal. The size of the basket is based on the number of people in the family. Phillip said the organization relies greatly on community volunteers because its staff consists of only four people. She said K-State student organizations are among the many donors in Manhattan. "The college students are struggling themselves," Phillip said. "To donate to the less fortunate, we find that amazing. That's what makes Manhattan such a special community. The volunteer-community donors are what makes us work."

White said this event should continue in the future, and he hopes the College of Engineering is setting an example for the K-State community. "We want to show that we are community aware," White said. Emily Frey, junior in civil engineering, said it is thoughtful of the students to donate their time and money to the hungry in Manhattan. "it's great that the College of Engineering is doing this for the community, and it's fun for us because we get to compete against the other departments," Frey said.

In 2004, the Flint Hills Breadbasket collected about 1.8 million pounds of food and fed 31,147 families, according to the organization's Web site at breadbasket.manhattanks.org. "The food collected in Manhattan stays in Manhattan," Phillip said. About 20 percent of Riley County citizens live at or below the poverty level. "I know the holidays can be especially hard for people, so this is a great time for people to be donating," Frey said.

Pictures

2020 FOOD DRIVE

March 1, 2020

Project Reports

2007 FOOD DRIVE

Nov. 12 - Nov. 16, 2007

General Description: All-district canned food drive around Thanksgiving.

Purpose and Relationship to Objectives of TBP: Provides community awareness of TBP and is a service to the community.

Cost & Personnel: No cost other than printing signs. Personnel collected donations and delivered them to local food pantry.

Overall Evaluation/Results: This canned food drive is a success each year, as KS-H winds the District Competition and helps feed families.

Participants

Lisa Beck
Ian Hartsig
Emily Voigt

2005 'CATS FOR CANS' FOOD DRIVE

Nov. 14 - Nov. 18, 2005

This project includes the entire college engineering, where every department is in competition with one another to collect the most food to be donated. The collected food was then counted and donated to the Flint Hills Breadbasket in Manhattan. In the end, the Architectural Engineering department collected the largest amount of food.

This project benefits those who are less fortunate and supports the Flint Hills Breadbasket and all that they accomplish for the community.

Costs were minimal for this project. There was a need for two large trucks to haul cans from campus to the Flint Hills Breadbasket. For personnel, people were needed to inventory, carry, and weigh food once collected.

Overall, Kansas Gamma Chapter collected over ???? cans and won the District 9 can collecting competition.

Organizing Member:

Ryan White

Participating Advisor:

Dean Richard Hayter

Participating Members:

Callie Sexton
Mark Lindgren
Ryan White
Jared Winn
Nick Potenski

Participating Electees:

Eric Lumpkin
Kevin Reynolds

2003 FOOD DRIVE

Fall 2002

The food drive is the annual food drive conducted by District 9. Kansas Gamma won the 2001-2002 food drive, and we gave a great effort again. The food drive was organized by the Vice President elect Jared Mason. Ten hours were spent organizing it, as the food drive included the entire engineering curriculum. The food was then donated to the Flint Hills Breadbasket in Manhattan. Jared and a few of our elects spent an additional ten hours collecting and counting the food.

2002 FOOD DRIVE

Oct. 28 - Nov. 8, 2002

The food drive is the annual food drive conducted by District 9. Kansas Gamma won the 2001-2002 food drive, and we gave a great effort again. The food drive was organized by the Vice President Elect, Nathan Parker. Ten hours were spent organizing it, as the food drive included the entire engineering curriculum. The food was then donated to the Flint Hills Breadbasket in Manhattan. This also served as a make-up service project for several members who could not attend the whitewashing, including Julie Quackenbush, Jessica Heir, Mohamed Awadallah, and Ayman Ahmed Nathan and these four electees spent an additional ten hours collecting and counting the food.

Our food drive ran during the last week of November and the first week of December 2002. In the end, the Biological/Agricultural department won at K-State by a large margin. Overall, KS Gamma collected over 700 cans of food, but was beaten by Arkansas Alpha. As a result, we took the traveling trophy to the district meeting and turned it over to AR Alpha.

1998 FOOD DRIVE

Nov. 9 - Nov. 20, 1998

A challenge was issued to the chapters in our region to collect canned goods. We participated in this challenge last year also. Two weeks were given in the contest. The first week was to be spent advertising the canned good collection. The second week we collected canned goods. Our chapter tried to get the involvement of the whole college by contacting departmental clubs. We communicated through e-mail and telephone. The clubs were allowed to collect cans using various methods. A second contest was formed between the departments. The winner of the secondary contest was Architectural Engineering. Chemical Engineering and Bio/Agricultural Engineering also contributed.

The purpose of the contest was to get engineering students and faculty involved in an effort to help the community. It addressed a need in society that we sometimes ignore.

The Vice President Elect and Recording Secretary Elect were responsible for organizing the food drive in our chapter. They were helped in the departments through communications by the Vice President and Cataloger Elect. The timeline and rules of the contest were established by another chapter and e-mailed to the President.

There was no cost. Each department handled their collections and reported back the totals.

Special problems were lack of involvement due to other campus efforts previous in the semester to raise canned goods. Also, some departmental clubs did not feel like a week was a proper amount of time for planning.

We collected many less canned goods than the previous year. This could have been due to a stronger effort to raise canned goods by other campus entities, but it was also due to weaker communication between our chapter and the departments. Last year, officers in our chapter were also very influential in their departmental clubs. This year we did not have enough push to motivate the departments. For next year we hope to have a visual display, such as a plaque, for the department that raises the most canned goods. This would make the effort seem more visible and remind them throughout the year. We hope to play more on competition.

People who participated