Local food drive to host food fight

It is a dream held by some children that is hardly ever realized. A moment of blissful chaos where manners and social conventions are thrown out of a school cafeteria window, followed closely by rectangular pizza and cartons of milk, all in the name of defiance. In movies they are romanticized in scenes during which hundreds of kids hurl sloppy joes into the nearest uncovered face as teachers scurry to suppress the battle - only to meet the same filthy fate as their students.

The instant glory that comes with school food fights is something that cannot be diminished by time or even punishment. They are messy masterpieces that many have longed to have a hand in painting.

On Nov. 8, UA students will get to live the dream on a massive scale. At 6 p.m., the first-ever Beat Auburn Beat Hunger food fight will be held on the Quad.

"Apparently, at the beginning of the semester, a bunch of the freshmen thought Beat Auburn Beat Hunger was actually a food fight," said Lindsay Griffith, a program coordinator for Beat Auburn Beat Hunger and a senior majoring in psychology and Spanish. "So then somebody said, 'Well, let's actually do a food fight.'"

The event will cost $5 per person, and students will compete in teams. Students can sign up individually or in groups of three to five, Griffith said. The money raised will go to the West Alabama Food Bank in the name of an organization chosen by the team who wins the food fight.

The event will come one week before the end of the annual Beat Auburn Beat Hunger food drive. The food drive takes place in the weeks leading up to the Iron Bowl. It joins the Capstone and the Tuscaloosa communities in a competition against Auburn University to see who can gather the most nonperishable food items for donation to the West Alabama Food Bank.

Since the competition's inception in 1994, the two universities have combined to collect more than 1.2 million pounds of food for the food bank.

This year, the University and the Tuscaloosa communities hope to collect 200,000 pounds of food - nearly 50,000 pounds more than last year.

As of Monday, the program had collected 7,000 pounds of food, Griffith said. She said many groups who donate wait until the last day of the drive to deposit what they collect, so the actual amount of food collected up to now is likely more than the current figures indicate.

Though the University has lost to Auburn the past seven years of the competition, Griffith said beating Auburn is possible if the whole UA community contributes.

"If everybody even just donated a couple cans or a couple dollars then that would be the difference to help us beat Auburn," Griffith said.

Drop-off points for food items are located around campus, and monetary donations are also accepted. For every dollar that is donated, the food bank will be able to purchase approximately two pounds of food. Students can also donate Dining Dollars or Bama Cash at any Bama Dining facility on campus and Bama Dining will match the donations up to $2,000, Griffith said.