SPEA, Kelley facee off with 'Food Fight'

Normally, a food fight is a waste of food. But that's not the case for IU's School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the Kelley School of Business, which have competed against each other to see which school can collect the most food this holiday season. The event is titled "Food Fight!"\nIU graduate student Jill Marshall, community coordinator for the SPEA Service Corps non-profit program, had the idea for the competition and also organized the first-time event.\n"I thought it would be a great way to get people jazzed," Marshall said. "There's sort of this natural underlying rivalry that exists between the two schools, so I thought, why not play on that?" \nThe two schools are collecting food items until Dec. 9 and the winner of the "Food Fight!" will be the school that collects the most pounds donated by its graduate and undergraduate students. \n"It's good that it's a competition, because it gets more people involved," said Jamie McIntosh, a non-profit management major in SPEA who helped organize the food drive. "(The food drive) brings you to the reality of the holiday season -- giving."\nPeople can also make money donations and dedicate their monetary gifts to friends, McIntosh said. All donations will go to Hoosier Hills Food Bank and Monroe County United Ministries to meet needs in the Bloomington-area community. \nMarshall said the idea for the food drive came to her after talking to a friend who worked at the Monroe County United Ministries food bank and said the pantry was "ridiculously low." MCUM had already paid an extra $1,000 to supply for the shortage in donations to the pantry. \nCurrently, the Kelley School of Business is winning the competition, Marshall said. Between the two schools, she expects nearly 2,000 pounds of food will be collected. She hopes food drive competition will continue next year, although she will not be at IU to lead it again, she said. She expects one of the schools will want a rematch. \nTony McGovern, a volunteer coordinator at Hoosier Hills Food Bank, said food drives like "Food Fight!" during the holiday seasons often bring in enough food to stretch for several months.\n"Unfortunately, hunger is a year-round problem," McGovern said.\nMany public schools and various groups in the community are also planning to hold food drives during the holiday season, he said.\n"We're trying to encourage people to do food drives," he said. "It's great, because we can get all that food in, then get it out again"