Tempe USG teamed up with St. Mary's Food Bank Alliance to win the Fight Against Hunger Campaign. (Image courtesy Tempe USG)St. Mary's Food Bank Alliance in Arizona was able to win the Fight Against Hunger Campaign and $60,000 on Sunday with help from Tempe Undergraduate Student Government.
The competition, hosted by Wal-Mart and Feeding America, ran from Sept. 15 to Oct. 5 and was the first time USG has partnered with St. Mary’s food bank, Tempe USG Philanthropic Director Audrey Elms said in an email.
“The partnership between us and St. Mary’s began because the theme of this year’s event was ‘Fight Hunger, Spark Change,’ and because ASU is the home of Sparky, we thought it was a natural fit,” Elms said.
Elms, who was also USG’s Fight Against Hunger Campaign Director, said the most difficult part of leading the campaign was reaching out to the ASU community.
The fundraising competition featured 50 food banks around the nation who competed to earn the most online votes.
“ASU is such a large university that we really wanted to harness the power and get the link out to as many students as possible,” she said. “We did this by reaching out to all the service and philanthropic-based organizations on all four campuses and sent mass emails out encouraging students to vote.”
She also said the design team made a cover photo for the competition attached with the link to vote and the public relations team wrote a blog about the campaign.
“We based all of our efforts and outreach on an online approach because the competition was based solely on online votes,” Elms said. “It took a lot of sharing and spamming to get the word out for people to vote, but it turned out to be successful in the end.”
Although she said there were many difficult aspects regarding the campaign, Elms said the rewards definitely outweighed them.
“The most rewarding part was definitely winning the competition,” she said. “By encouraging students to do such a simple task like voting online, it can help the lives of so many people by giving St. Mary’s the chance to win $60,000.”
Founded in 1967, St. Mary’s Food Bank in Arizona was the first established food bank in the world.
Elms said Tempe USG was grateful for the opportunity to help its neighborhood food bank with their efforts in the competition, ultimately helping it win the competition.
“I’m proud to have been a part of this campaign and even more proud that we were able to help a local food bank with funding and especially our local neighbors in Tempe,” she said.
USG Vice President of Services Brian Salerno, who assists with philanthropy, said he was proud of the way the campaign united the ASU community.
“To see students from all campuses help achieve one common goal was very rewarding,” he said in email.
He also said he was grateful for the opportunity to work alongside St. Mary’s and help it win the competition.
“It was great knowing USG one of their greatest supporters,” Salerno said. “We knew we had the resources to galvanize the significant amount of votes needed, and it was truly humbling knowing we made such a great impact for this local food bank.”
Salerno said USG has built a great relationship with St. Mary’s food bank through this partnership and plans to help the organization in any way possible in the future.
He said St. Mary’s brought up the idea of having a food drive or volunteer event surrounding the ASU vs. Arizona Territorial Cup football game.
“We had great success this year and next year we hope to receive even more participation from ASU students and alumni,” said Salerno.
Nonprofit leadership and management freshman Taylor Walters said although she did not hear about the campaign, she definitely plans to participate next time to support a good cause.
“I think it’s a really great idea, because it raises awareness and allows all students to get involved,” she said.
Reach the reporter at Justin.Toscano@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @justintoscano3
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