Sodexho attempts Guinness World Record

    GCSU will hopefully be a contributing member of the Guinness World Records.
    On Oct. 18, more than 400 schools in contract with Sodexho food services including GCSU, participated in the Cans Across America’s nation-wide food drive in an attempt to break the Guinness World Records’ most canned food donations raised in a single event.
    GCSU’s Sodexho services encouraged students and faculty to donate canned foods on Wednesday, Oct. 18, from 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. They also took monetary donations for use to buy cans.
 The current record for most collected canned foods in one event is 156,889.34 pounds. Should all 400 schools achieve the goal of collecting at least 500 pounds, Cans Across America should collect more than 200,000 pounds of food.
  “It’s a great project to volunteer and it was a big success as first year participants,” GIVE Center director and canned food drive witness Kendall Stiles said. “Everyone likes to be competitive, so it’s the goal to beat the Guinness World record that just further enhanced people’s interest in the can drive.”
  GCSU’s Sodexho had a goal of collecting 500 pounds of canned foods. By the end of the day they had collected 726 pounds.
    All cans donated will benefit many deserving recipients this coming Thanksgiving and throughout the year in the Middle Georgia Food Bank Unto Others Organization-area.
    Karen Ramirez, marketing intern for Sodexho, was really surprised and enthused that the students were generous with giving away food, something that is generally perceived as unexpected among college students.
    “The students knew it was for a good cause,” Ramirez said. “ The fact that it was going to benefit us locally encouraged many students to help out.”
    Students and faculty that participated were rewarded with raffle tickets for a $100 Wal-Mart gift certificate drawing and free food to show the organizations gratitude. They also held some interdepartmental competition that included University Housing, Human Resources and Payroll, Modern Foreign Languages and the School of Business among others to boost can donations.
    Claudia Ramirez, a dual math and pre-engineering major, and Sachie Kurotaki, a junior international student from Japan, were two of the many students who participated in this year’s Cans Across America.
    “I helped out because I knew that even just a few cans can help fight hunger,” Ramirez said.
    Other students, however, were quite straightforward about why they participated.
    “I just wanted to win the $100 gift certificate from Wal-Mart,” Kurotaki said. “And also to feed the hungry.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 3 2006. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry