The thirty-first annual Beat Bama Food Drive kicked off on Friday, Oct. 4, and will run for several weeks, ending on Nov. 21. BBFD raises food and money for the Food Bank of East Alabama in a friendly competition against the University of Alabama’s Beat Auburn Beat Hunger (BABH) drive, which supports the West Alabama Food Bank.
Although poised as a friendly competition between the lifelong rivals, the creation of the fundraiser originally aimed to ease tensions by feeding Alabamians across the state.
“Thirty-one years ago the rivalry was really heated and really toxic at the time and so they were trying to create something good out of the rivalry and so truly it's the rivalry for a cause,” said Lily Bradford, BBFD President and senior double majoring in accounting and business analytics. “It's kind of like taking the opposing sides and channeling something good out of it and so people across the state get fed just in time for Thanksgiving.”
Last year BBFD raised 686,807 pounds of food for the Food Bank of East Alabama, doubling the amount that Bama raised.
As part of the kickoff event, BBFD’s signature dunk tank occurred on the Haley Concourse, offering students the chance to dunk campus leaders such as the Student Government Association President Jack Hilton and Miss Auburn Grace Crim. Other kickoff festivities include handing out donuts and coffee on Roosevelt Concourse, mini golf near the business and engineering buildings and a Kona Ice truck.
Bradford has been involved with BBFD since her freshman year at Auburn and shared that her favorite thing about BBFD is going into kickoff because she loves seeing the entire campus getting involved.
“I love just seeing the support that we get from the entire Auburn family. I mean seeing the donation barrels all around and seeing so many people willing to donate and give and help people out, that's always really inspiring to me. Whenever the drive starts it's just like 'Wow, Auburn loves Auburn so much and they want to help people out if they can,'” Bradford said.
Something new to look forward to this year is the spelling out of “War Eagle” with cans on Samford Lawn on Oct. 19. BBFD partnered with numerous campus organizations and Auburn businesses who are donating and bringing the cans to the event. The goal is to use 31,000 cans to represent both BBFD’s 31-year legacy and its mission to fight food insecurity.
“We're really pushing out to the community to come help us build it. We're really excited about that event. It's going to be a great partnership with downtown businesses,” Bradford said.
Other events throughout the drive include the annual 5k and one-mile color run. Additionally, BBFD is doing a competition this year between different student organizations. Whichever student organization has the highest engagement and donations gets a donation back to their philanthropy.
“Every dollar is seven meals and two pounds of food, so every little bit goes a long way. One in three Auburn students face food insecurity so it's kind of like students helping students,” Bradford said.
On Oct. 7 the BBFD and Beat Auburn Beat Hunger teams went to the state capitol in Montgomery where Governor Kay Ivey officially declared the opening of the drives. This annual tradition marks Ivey as the first official donor, signaling support for both universities and the joint fight against food insecurity.
Students looking to get more involved can find volunteer opportunities on GivePulse, which is accessible to all students via their AU Involve accounts. Volunteer opportunities are available through BBFD and the Food Bank of East Alabama, which offers weekly opportunities to help.
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