UW-Eau Claire donated almost 3,000 pounds of food during an event, Helping Hands Across America, on Thursday to help fight hunger and assist people in need in the Chippewa Valley area.

UW-Eau Claire teamed up with Blugold Dining and the community to raise food for Feed My People Food Bank. This is the Sodexo Foundation’s third year doing this event, said Paula Stytz, Blugold Dining’s retail manager.

The Women’s basketball team donated the most pounds of food with 1.36 pounds per person and won a free buffet for their team. University Activities and Programs was the winning faculty organization, with 62.32 pounds per person, Stytz said.

Senior Ali Gillberg, a forward on the women’s basketball team, said their team takes part in events like these ever year.

“We are such a big part of the community,” she said. “The community supports us a lot so we feel we should give back.”

“We’ve done it the last three years, and won each time,” said Tina Killey, office manager of Activities and Programs.

The nonprofit Sodexo Foundation was working towards setting a Guinness world record for the most canned food donations raised during a single event in multiple locations across the United States, according to the news release.

“We’re pretty competitive with it,” Killey said, even though they did not set a record.

Stytz said she was “really impressed with the general student population (that donated).” She bought 17 cases of food for people to buy so that they could then turn around and donate it to Helping Hands.

Last year, more than 2,947 pounds of food were donated, Stytz said. She said she believes that some of the reasons that the total pounds of food donated was less this year was because “times are a lot tougher . people are less apt to do something like this.”

This was the first year that they accepted boxed items, which also weighs less than canned food.

She said that many individual students were “a lot more generous than they have (been) in the past.”
Next year, Stytz said that they are going to try to get more student groups on campus involved.