Local Company To Sponsor $10,000 High School Food Fight

A Chesterbrook company is encouraging kids to food fight this winter—and will be rewarding them with up to $10,000 for their school. In early 2012, biopharmaceutical company Shire will host their second annual Great Food Fight, a canned food drive which benefits Philabundance.

Last year, 21 schools raised 65 tons of food for Philabundance over a two-week period. This year Shire is dreaming even bigger, with a goal to collect 100 tons of food during the drive, which runs from Feb. 15 to March 2, 2012.

"We think they're some momentum there, a greater awareness, and we're anticipating greater support," said Matthew Cabrey, Corporate Communications Director at Shire.

This is the second year Shire has sponsored the Great Food Fight.  The company came up with the idea for the massive can drive in late 2009 when Philabundance approached Shire for financial support.

"We said, 'Sure we can get involved, but what else can we do other than writing a check to help you minimize hunger in the Delaware Valley?'" Cabrey said.

After brainstorming, Shire settled on the idea of engaging high school students through a canned food drive competition. "We knew high school students want to get involved in these kind of activities, and some are required to do a community service project as well," Cabrey explained.

In spring 2010, Shire sent messages to 200 high schools in the five-county region, with a modest goal of engaging 10 or 15 schools to participate and raising 25 tons of food. By the end of the two-week period, 21 schools had raised 65 tons of food.

"We were surprised in a positive way," Cabrey said. "Setting a goal of 25 tons of food seemed pretty high—that's 50,000 pounds of food and we thought that was achievable, but we were a little worried about whether we were setting the goal too high. And we were thrilled."

In fact, the 65 tons raised through the Great Food Fight accounted for 13.5 percent of all the food collected for Philabundance through food drives in 2010, Cabrey said.

In the Great Food Fight, the school that collects the most food per student in pounds will win $10,000. The school that collects the most food overall will win $5,000, and five $1,000 prizes will be awarded to the school in each participating county (Bucks, Chester, Montgomery, Delaware and Philadelphia) that collects the most food.

Last year, Germantown Friends High School took home the $10,000 prize after collecting seven tons of food, which breaks down to 38.74 pounds of food for each of the school's 345 students, Cabrey said. Penncrest High School won $5,000 for raising the most food overall: nearly 15 tons of food, coming out to 17 pounds per student.

"The key message is that this is a fun, friendly competition and we encourage high school students to lead the charge and be creative in how they do it," Cabrey said. "They also need to think about the elementary schools and middle schools that some of them went to when they were younger. It's the high schools that are competing, but that doesn't mean they can't reach deep into their community."

Nearby Radnor High School participated in the Great Food Fight last year, but Conestoga High School and Great Valley High School did not.

Dec. 31 is the deadline for schools to register for the Great Food Fight, and the collection drive runs Feb. 15 to March 2, 2012.  For more information visit the Philabundance website.

According to Philabundance, more than 900,000 people in the Delaware Valley are at risk of chronic hunger and malnutrition. The organization serves meals to 65,000 people per week.