Friendly competition is back and students need help donating cans of food, money
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IDAHO FALLS — Do you have food cans lying around your house or extra food storage that you don’t know what to do with? Look no further. You can put those cans to good use by donating and helping two rival high schools that are coming together for a good cause.
Skyline and Idaho Falls High School are joining together in a friendly competition called “The Souper Bowl.” It helps raise money and canned food items for the Community Food Basket—Idaho Falls. The nonprofit organization works to meet the emergency food needs of families and individuals facing food insecurity in the greater Idaho Falls area.
RELATED | ‘Souper Bowl’ competition kicks off between high schools to help local food basket
The Souper Bowl started Monday and will run until Feb. 4. This is the 17th year.
“There’s a lot of local families that are in need, so it’s just important that we help and serve our community in bringing the food. I can’t imagine going hungry,” said Karlie Mickelsen, a Skyline High School student.
Mickelsen is part of the student government that organizes The Souper Bowl. She said this year, the goal for Skyline is to bring in 100,000 cans.
According to Ariel Jackson, the executive director of the Community Food Basket, last year, Skyline High School collected 60,000 cans and $22,000, which added an extra 44,000 cans in total. Skyline High School’s food weight at the warehouse came in at 23,770 pounds of food.
Idaho Falls High School collected 53,229 cans and collected $11,500 which added an extra 23,000 cans. Idaho Falls High School’s food weight at the warehouse came in at 25,793 pounds of food and took two full truck trips to move to the warehouse.
RELATED | Competition between two schools brings in food, money for local food basket
The two schools equate every $1 collected to represent two canned items in their total.
“The Souper Bowl is the second largest food drive that we have every year that brings in so much food. We get to witness the students come together and work together. They get a sense of what the community needs and what we are about,” a spokeswoman from the Community Food Basket told EastIdahoNews.com. “We just want to make sure that everybody that needs food, gets food no matter what walk of life you are coming from. If the need is there, we are here to meet the need.”
Grant Okeson, an Idaho Falls High School student, told EastIdahoNews.com he helped organize The Souper Bowl. He says it’s a fun competition that brings a lot of incentives so students can donate. Elementary and middle schools participate too.
“A lot of teachers at IF will give incentives like extra credit or a homework pass or drop a quiz, something like that, and then with each elementary school in our boundary, we do dodgeball and donuts with the winning class that brings in the most cans. It’s a lot of fun,” Okeson said.
If you are interested in donating cans, here’s where you can drop them off:
- Idaho Falls High School will be at Albertsons at 17th Street on Friday from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturday from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.
- Skyline High School will be at Broulim’s and the westside Albertsons off Broadway on Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
If you want to donate money, Skyline High School has a GoFundMe account. Click here.
Idaho Falls High School is promoting Venmo at @CFBIdahoFalls and asking people to note that the donation is for IFHS in the comment section.
“This is really a student-driven project. They do all the coordination. They make the arrangements to go out into the community,” said Margaret Wimborne, a spokeswoman for D91. “We are just incredibly proud of our students and the work that they do around this every year. It’s just an amazing community service project.”
