More than 1,000 pounds of food collected in friendly competition.

A pre-holiday contest pitting Anoka-Ramsey Community College faculty and staff against students helped generate more than 1,000 pounds of food and household staples for donation to area charities.

The goal of the contest was to see which group could collect more items for donation. After two-and-one-half weeks watching piles of food climb higher and higher outside the college president’s office, the contest ended in a tie. The faculty and staff’s 22 boxes of collected items were then donated to the Anoka County Brotherhood Council Food Shelf in Anoka. The students’ 22 boxes of items were donated to the Aliveness Project, a South Minneapolis community center that provides support to people living with HIV/AIDS.

“It was fun seeing the variety of items that came in -- baby food, paper towels, soup, hamburger helper, beans, tuna, cereal, and the list goes on,” says Lynnette Brambrink, Secretary for the President and chief organizer of the food drive competition. “The real winners are the people who will go to the food shelves and receive the food.”

It appeared for much of the friendly competition that faculty and staff would win, as their piles of donated food towered over the students’. However, a challenge by ARCC psychology faculty member Jim Biederman to his students during the final week of classes tipped the scales. Many students brought food items along with them to their final exams on the final day of the food drive. The effort generated another seven boxes of food items, just enough to help the students’ total donations tie with that of faculty and staff.

“I was so proud of my students,” Biederman says.