Farmington High School turns food drive into friendly competition

FARMINGTON — Students at Farmington High School are turning an annual food drive into a friendly competition, challenging each other to collect as much food as possible for people in need.

The school is participating in America First Credit Union's annual food drive, while also competing against Fremont High School in Ogden to see which school can collect the most food.

Students say they have been going door to door and encouraging classmates to donate canned goods and other nonperishable items.

"Our school usually will compete against Fremont High School, which is up in Ogden, and we just see whoever can donate the most amount of canned food or just sustainable food that we can give to any food drive possible," said McGuire Bingham, a Farmington High student body service officer.

The effort has already produced significant results.

"We were able to collect over eight bins worth of food, enough to fill a whole truck full and some much that there wasn't even room to fill all of it," said Hannah Plaizier, service club president and vice president of the National Honor Society chapter. "In total, that was about 8,700 pounds of food."

Students say the competition is about more than beating another school. Nearly 60,0000 Utahns are facing food insecurity, including one in five children, according to the Utah Food Bank.

"We always talk about one in five kids in the community don't know what they're going to have for their next meal," said Ty Runyan, a Farmington football captain. "So there's definitely a need there, and that's kind of where we came in and help out."

Students will continue collecting canned goods and other nonperishable food items through the end of the month.

While there may be a winner when the food fight is over, students say the bigger goal is helping people in their own community.

The America First Credit Union food drive runs through Oct. 31.

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