As the holiday draws closer, several Broome County families will have something extra to be thankful for ‘ a hot meal, courtesy of the students, faculty and organizations that made donations at this year’s Cans Across America food drive.
Last Wednesday, from noon to 11 p.m., volunteers at the Events Center accepted non-perishable food donations to feed the hungry in the Greater Binghamton area. Last year’s total collection reached about 1,200 pounds. This year, the total number of donations for the one-day food drive totaled 3,742 items, or 3,276 pounds of food.
Cans Across America is a nation-wide food drive run by Sodexho, and this is the second year Binghamton University has participated in the event ‘ which was originally created as an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for most items collected during a single-day food drive.
‘In the food business, ending hunger should be our top priority,’ said Bob Griffin, director of marketing for Sodexho. ‘Kids in Binghamton go hungry every night. For a lot of them, their school lunch is the last meal they will have all day.’
The food collected at this event will be donated directly to the Community Hunger Outreach Warehouse (CHOW), an organization that supports more than 40 soup kitchens throughout Broome County.
Griffin had a positive outlook on the progress made throughout the night.
‘Ideally, we would like to see every student bring in at least one can,’ he said. ‘That may not be the case tonight, but there has been a substantial response, and we are very pleased.’
Late Nite Binghamton provided the evening’s entertainment. Attendees were able to play video games, enter raffles to win prizes, watch performances by X-Fact’r and several musical acts, and dance to music provided by a live DJ from the Caribbean Student Association.
‘This event is a great concept and I hope the students understand the need to raise food for local people,’ said Justin Joseph, program coordinator for Late Nite Binghamton. ‘Some students take for granted the fact that most area people don’t have meal cards.’
‘This is a very important event,’ said Katie Lorenzo, a sophomore who donated several cans of food to the cause. ‘As a University, we should be able to give back to the community in any way we can.’
Griffin added that he feels the food drive has raised awareness among students on campus of the less fortunate members of the community.
‘People think that it doesn’t exist if they don’t see it,’ he said.