Beyond the spirit events and homecoming competitions, Homecoming Week presents a simpler opportunity to University of Idaho students – an opportunity to collect food for those in need.
As part of Homecoming Week”s many traditions, UI students collected food donations for the Moscow Food Bank this week for the Homecoming Food Drive.
Homecoming Committee Chair Emily Rasch said teams of students compete in order to get points for participating in the food drive.
The food drive was one of many competitive events that are part of Homecoming Week, including Yell Like Hell, Most Vandalized Fan and the blood drive. This year, there are teams from fraternities and sororities, as well as student organizations participating in the food drive.
“The food drive is very important to the local community. It”s come to be a tradition now so they expect us to go out and ask them for food,” Rasch said. “I think we have a pretty good system down.”
Each team is assigned a particular neighborhood and on Sunday, the start of the homecoming festivities, they attached a bag and a door hanger with directions on it to front doors in that neighborhood.
The door hanger explains what food and supplies they are looking for and when they will be picked up.
Those who choose to participate left the requested items on their front porch to be picked up when the volunteers returned.
The Homecoming Food Drive rents two “Vandal Vans” from the university each year with the goal of completely filling these vans with food.
The food will be donated to the Moscow Food Bank, which is hosted by St. Mary”s Parish.
“We have a great partnership with them, so we”re able to help a lot of people,” Rasch said.
Rasch also said this is the first time they are also doing a supply drive in partnership with Alternatives to Violence of the Palouse (ATVP), an organization that provides support and shelter for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and other violent crimes.
The supply drive will be carried out much like food drive except that they will be collecting items such as pillows, shampoos, conditioners and other toiletries. These supplies were dropped off outside the VandalStore Thursday.
Rasch said ATVP reached out to the Homecoming Committee because of their success with the Moscow Food Bank. She said they felt that partnering with the Homecoming Food Drive would be a good opportunity to spread the word about their organization”s needs and mission.
Linda Nickels, who manages the Moscow Food Bank, said she greatly appreciates all the effort the volunteers put into collecting food for the food bank.
Nickels said the Homecoming Food Drive is important to the food bank because most of their food drives are in the fall. She said the homecoming drive is the first of the fall food drives and comes at a time of year when their stock typically starts to run low.
“It”s kind of a good boost for our shelves,” Nickels said.
The Moscow Food Bank serves all of Latah County and anyone from the county who is in need of food can come there and request food.
Nickels said the Homecoming Food Drive has been partnering with the Moscow Food Bank for more than 20 years, and they are grateful for the support.
“It”s a real benefit to us,” Nickels said. “We appreciate the work they put into it.”
Ryan Locke can be reached at [email protected]