School “Food Fight” breaks record
Thirty-nine schools and 24 community partners battled in Ozarks Food Harvest’s fourth-annual school food drive competition, Food Fight, collecting 39,450 pounds of donations, or 32,875 meals — the most ever raised for this food drive.
This year the food collected was sent directly to OFH’s eight partner food pantries in Springfield and four school food pantries.
The Food Fight Champion in the middle school category is once again Cherokee Middle School, bringing in 7,021 pounds of donations, or 9.23 pounds collected per student. Kickapoo High School is the champion among all participating high schools, collecting 1,744 pounds of food, or one pound per student. These schools were awarded traveling trophies.
Five elementary schools’ classes won paid field trips to Ozarks Food Harvest to see firsthand how food donations are processed.
In its first three years, Food Fight collected more than 18,500 pounds, or more than 15,000 meals. This was the first year Food Fight allowed Partners in Education to serve as collection points for schools.