By amanda bolsinger
News Reporter
Cookies, chocolates, checks and cans were all part of a University effort to raise 125,000 pounds of food for the governor’s 25th-annual food drive this year.
The University departments participating in the food drive set a goal of 125,000, which is 20,000 pounds higher than last year’s total. Despite doubts, the University surpassed its goal and raised a total of 131,101 pounds of food for FOOD for Lane County. As of Wednesday, a few barrels containing at least 1,000 pounds of food had not yet been collected.
“We did it. I am really tickled about it,” food-drive coordinator Karen Scheeland said.
The total raised includes the money donated, with every dollar buying six pounds of food.
Deb Buchanan, the food solicitor at FOOD for Lane County, said the average adult eats six pounds of food a day. That includes three meals, healthy beverages and a healthy snack. Three pounds feeds a child for a day, she said.
The food the University raised
will feed 21,850 adults for a day, or 43,700 children.
“We are very excited,” Buchanan said. “We don’t know what we would do without all of you.”
The best foods to donate are high-protein items and items that don’t need anything added to them, such as non-condensed soups and pastas.
“A lot of people who come for assistance at the end of the month don’t have the things you add like oil, eggs and butter,” Buchanan said.
Money raised came through an auction, the sale of snickerdoodles and chocolates and checks from faculty.
Brian Stanley, the assistant director of admissions, spent hours in the kitchen making 153 dozen, or 1,836, snickerdoodles to sell. Stanley has sold the cookies in the past, and, after taking a cookie-making hiatus last year, he returned in full force this year.
“I only make them on the weekends,” Stanley said. “The last weekend of the food drive I made
42 dozen cookies, and it took me eight hours.”
Stanley donates his time and the supplies to the food drive. One dozen cookies sells for $5, so he brought in the equivalent of 4,590 pounds of food.
The Lundquist College of Business hosted its fourth-annual silent auction to raise money for the food drive on Feb. 24. Among the items up for bidding were dinner at the Excelsior Restaurant, signed artwork, baby-sitting services and a private tour and studio session at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. The College of Business brought in 31,926 pounds of food, the largest total of the drive.
The Psychology Department came in second with 22,245 pounds of food. Psychology Department business manager Becky Goodrich brought in $3,700 for the department by collecting checks from faculty members. The Computer and Information Science Department came in third with 10,535 pounds of food.
“I am just amazed at what the people pull off,” Scheeland said. “What they do to get other people to give is amazing. They do it willingly and come back each year. What they will do next year, I haven’t got a clue.”

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