Athletics students, officials collect more than 13,000 food cans for local ministry

The athletics department raised six tons of food for a local outreach organization.

Teams were encouraged to collect canned foods throughout the semester and ended up donating more than 13,000 cans, said Athletic Director Jim Abbott. The donations were given to Skyline Urban Ministries, a United Methodist organization that provides food, clothing and eye care to Oklahoma City’s community.

“They are deeply appreciative of our efforts,” Abbott said. “They came to pick food up this year, and they said, ‘we just have to tell you we were really hurting, and this is going to be huge for us and for the people that we serve.’”

The athletes know about the food drive as early as orientation, but each team varies on when they start collection, Abbott said. Freshman Soccer Player Abigail Banks said her team gathered food from the beginning of the semester to the end of the drive and got their families involved.

“We kind of made it a requirement that each person had to donate a certain amount of money, I think it was $5 worth of cans, and so that was one thing,” Banks said. “And then we all encouraged each other to ask parents and grandparents when we went home over Thanksgiving Break for cans.”

In past years, the athletics department has raised up to 20,000 cans, but the point of the drive is to impact the community, not beat the record, Abbott said.

“We made a difference in people’s lives, and I could feel confident about that if it was a thousand cans,” Abbott said.

Banks said even though the athletes raised an average amount of food for the drive, the results are still significant.

“Typically, we get around that amount, so it was surprising because that is a lot of food, but overall I think we did a great job,” Banks said.

The annual drive started 10 years ago after a suggestion from Baseball Player David Mann. Abbott said he encourages students to get involved in the community, since one person can make a lasting impact.

“It was just one idea from one student just like you,” Abbott said. “And eight or 10 or 12 or however many years later, we’ve collected something like 125,000 pounds of food, so it just takes one.  It doesn’t have to be 300 athletes trying to collect, it can just be one person.”