Beat Auburn Beat Hunger Food Drive Sets New Record

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The University of Alabama raised 319,437 pounds in this year’s Beat Auburn Beat Hunger food drive, breaking a school record.

All food and money collected from the Beat Auburn Beat Hunger food drive benefits the West Alabama Food Bank. The food bank works with nine counties in West Alabama, serving a population of more than 315,000 residents. This year’s drive ran from Oct. 1 to Nov. 18.

Auburn University raised 352,388 pounds of food, winning the friendly collegiate competition for the first time since 2016.

Results were announced at an outdoor event at the West Alabama Food Bank Friday morning. Together the two schools raised 671,826 pounds of food, which will help families with food insecurity for months to come, said Jean Rykaczewski, executive director of the food bank.

“[UA] exceeded all of their goals, all of their expectations,” Rykaczewski said. “They set very high financial goals, high pound goals, and this group worked really hard to overcome some of the challenges they had coming off of a pandemic. I have never seen a group work harder under such challenging conditions.”

Founded in 1994, the Beat Auburn Beat Hunger food drive and the Beat Bama Food Drive have collected more than 7.6 million pounds of nonperishable food for Alabama families in need.