River Hawks lead the way in America East Food Frenzy initiative
12/13/2019 11:54:00 AM | Community Engagement
UMass Lowell finished first in the conference with over 10,000 food items collected
The River Hawks finished first in the America East Conference with 10,039 food items collected, which accounted for 25% of all America East food donations, across the nine campuses. Every UMass Lowell athletic team participated in the program, which included over 8,900 items. The three organizations that benefited from the program were the UMass Lowell Navigators Food Pantry, the Merrimack Valley Food Bank and the House of Hope in Lowell.
"We are very proud of our student-athletes and staff for rising to the challenge for this impactful initiative," said Peter Casey, UMass Lowell Director of Athletics. "It's very important for us to give back to our surrounding communities and all of our teams do a great job on embracing these programs. We look forward to doing more outreach in the future to give our student-athletes a wide range of experiences while on campus."
The River Hawk softball team led the challenge with 3,421 items donated.
"We are so excited to have raised over 10,000 cans for America East Food Frenzy," said UMass Lowell softball student-athlete Sara Siteman. "Coming into this year, the America East Food Frenzy was a top priority for UMass Lowell's Student-Athlete Advisory Commitee (SAAC). We decided to make it a competition between all the teams to see who could raise the most items. The competitive nature between the teams is what made this can drive so successful. I knew it was important to motivate our team to bring in cans, because I knew other teams would step up and try to beat us. We posted on our social media for fans to bring canned goods to our fall games. Donations from our families, friends, and alums were a huge reason behind our success. Every team wanted to win and you could see that in the last couple days as we raised most of the items in the last week. We crushed our original goal and I'm looking forward to beating 10,000 cans next year. I'm so proud of our student athletes for all the effort they put in to help our community."
The America East Food Frenzy continues to set new records as it makes a profound impact in America East communities. For the fifth-straight year, the conference's member institutions and the conference office collected food items to be donated to local food pantries, totaling over 40,000 and more than doubling last year's total.
"The donation was extremely helpful," said Philip Beagel, Associate Director of Residence Life. "It was remarkable the amount of food we received from athletics, it was just fantastic. In terms of our service, it will go a long way. We have over 150 students that are using the food pantry on a monthly basis, so that food is critical in providing staples that we need and also being able to introduce a little bit of variety. A lot of the items that came in were snack food, which we can also benefit from."
"The dedication to the America East Food Frenzy on our campuses and among our student-athletes, particularly each campus SAAC, is overwhelming and impressive," said America East Commissioner, Amy Huchthausen. "To be able to help so many individuals and families during a time when so many need it is gratifying and what we are all about as a conference."
The America East Food Frenzy is a conference-wide community service initiative designed to promote cohesion between America East's member institutions while also providing significant donations to several charities in campus communities.
The America East Food Frenzy reflects the missions of both the America East SAAC and the conference at large. In the five years of the America East Food Frenzy, over 83,000 items have been donated to charities in America East communities. The America East Conference and all its members are dedicated to impacting, engaging and growing a community that reflects the values and convictions of the conference.-
