Ready, set, food fight!

Downtown Lansing Inc. hosts third annual food drive competition

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Monday, Oct. 22 — If we could make sure hungry, homeless and needy families got all their servings of fruits and veggies this holiday season simply by throwing food at them, the world would be a better place. Well, actually throwing food at them is a bad idea, not to mention denigrating. Perhaps donating food items as part of the Downtown Lansing Annual Food Fight would be a better way to go about it. 

The competitive food drive calls for teams of local businesses or anyone who wants to join in Downtown Lansing Inc.’s fight against hunger to participate in donating food and money for the Greater Lansing Food Bank. 

The fattest team in the competition — that is, the team that has the most pounds of food at the end of the competition — wins. For the sake of the competition, every dollar donated equals one pound of food. Teams members can donate cash or food items. The pounds collected by each team will be divided by the number of team members to determine who holds the most donated weight. Last year’s champs were a group of city of Lansing employees called the “Appetites for Change” team.

Cathleen Edgerly, marketing and communications director for Downtown Lansing Inc. said the number of donations has almost doubled each year since the first fight in 2010.

Last year, around 5,600 pounds of food and $543 was donated.

The Greater Lansing Food Bank truck will sit outside of the state Capitol where participants can drop off their food items from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 27. Registration to compete will be ongoing until Nov. 1.

“We had a truck full of donations that was bigger than the actual food bank truck we had parked outside last year,” Edgerly said. 

The most preferred donation items include things like Hamburger Helper, pasta, peanut butter, baby formula and canned proteins like beans, tuna and salmon. 

Edgerly said only three teams have signed up so far, but any potential food slingers have until Nov. 1 to sign up. 

To sign up a team, contact Edgerly at (517) 487-1661. 

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