Sponsored by the Association of Amherst Students, the Dean of Students Office and the Amherst women's golf team, they drew in over $600 for the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, which distributes food to over 400 agencies in the region.
MassPIRG's efforts at the game were part of its much larger Thanksgiving Food Drive campaign. Originally envisioned as a competitive collection drive between Amherst and Williams by Mingham Ji '09 and Channing Jones '09, MassPIRG aimed to harness the age-old rivalry of the two institutions.
"I came up with the competitive food drive idea because my high school had a huge rivalry with a school in the next suburb. Since we were playing Williams for Homecoming, I thought the rivalry would be a good way to generate support for a good cause," said Ji.
Though Williams College initially accepted Amherst's challenge, they soon pulled out of the competition. While Williams' withdrawal slowed MassPIRG's momentum, it did not have any appreciable implications for the food drive efforts. From the project's inception, an inter-dorm competition was organized in conjunction with the Williams-Amherst food drive as a means of motivating students to donate.
The inter-dorm competition, which began on Monday last week, offers as a prize an a capella concert by Bluestockings and The Zumbyes in the spring to the dorm that has donated the most by this Thursday. The prize had remained undisclosed prior to last Friday.
With the exception of most instant noodle products, any and all non-perishable food items are acceptable as donations for the competition. Additionally, monetary donations are accepted; three dollars are equivalent to one pound of food. Donation boxes exist in each dorm as arranged by the dorm's Resident Counselors (RCs). The RCs are also responsible for accepting monetary donations for the competition.
In addition to the inter-dorm competition, the success of the Thanksgiving Food Drive thus far has been largely due to the support of the AAS, the Dean of Students Office and the women's golf team. "[Williams' withdrawal] did not really affect the competition in practical terms because we had such a solid framework of support here in terms of senators, Dean Ben Lieber, RCs and MassPIRG willing to pull the competition together," said Ji.
The women's golf team, coached by Michelle Morgan, Senior Women's Administrator, was, even prior to the Thanksgiving Food Drive, collecting food for donation to the Amherst Survival Center.
Realizing that there were often non-perishable goods left over from team trips to away matches, the golf team began gathering and donating the food in September after teams had returned to the campus. When asked for assistance by Ji, the women's golf team quickly pledged its support. "I responded to Mingham Ji's request for help from the athletic teams for the Western Massachusetts food bank drive. I immediately got my golf team involved and engaged the help and support from other intercollegiate teams," commented Coach Morgan. "I am very proud of my golf team's involvement in both of these projects and also our other sport teams who joined in."
In addition to the golf team's support and Coach Morgan's aid as liaison between the Food Drive coordinators and the athletics department, the women's soccer team donated $95 and a box of cans.
Now over a week into the drive and with only a few more days to go, the Thanksgiving Food Drive has proven to be a great success. Several hundreds of dollars worth of donations have already been collected and most of the cans have not yet even been counted. "The food drive has been successful so far in terms of getting a positive response from the different groups we are working with. Channing and I were amazed by how quickly the senators, RCs, athletic teams and the Dean of Students Office resolved to help us make this project a campus-wide event," said Ji.
"The one problem we have had is motivating students to contribute anything they have-either money or cans. Because the entire school is involved, it is easy for each individual to feel lost in the shuffle, but the important part of this competition is to realize how much of a difference we can each make for the food bank and underprivileged families in the local area, just by donating one can or one dollar," she said. "Even if every student donates just $1, we will have well over $1,000 dollars to donate to the food bank."