One for the Record Books: An inside look at the NCSSM Food Drive with coordinator Sue Anne Lewis

Sue Anne Lewis is a Student Life Instructor at NCSSM, where she has served since 2004. Hailing from Marshallberg, N.C., Sue Anne graduated from Meredith College in 2004 with a Bachelor of Science in Exercise and Sports Science. Because of her work spearheading both NCSSM Food Drives (2010 and 2011), she was awarded Meredith College’s Recent Graduate Award, was named the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina’s Volunteer of the Month (March 2011), was nominated for the News&Observer’s Tar Heel of the Week, and was second runner-up for the Subway High School Hero award. She was recently named to the Advisory Board for Kicking 4 Hunger, a nonprofit organization founded by Class of 2008 alumnus Gabriel Whaley.

The day before the NCSSM Food Drive on March 5, 2011, I hadn’t slept in more than 40 hours. Coordinating the drive had been a full-time job, occupying 6-8 hours a day for the past seven months, and 10-12 hours a day in the final weeks prior to the drive. Planning began in August 2010 but it was a feat two years in the making (the first record-breaking attempt was in March 2010). It was also one that we would never have accomplished without the support of the entire community.

Although NCSSM broke the Guinness World Record with 559,885 pound of food, NCSSM collected nearly 880,000 pounds of food between the 2010 and 2011 food drives. And since, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average American eats 1,996.3 pounds of food per year that means that NCSSM collected enough food to feed more than 440 people for an entire year. Now that’s one for the record books.

The Guinness World Record-breaking food drive would not have been possible without the help of so many people who took an interest in the project—founding faculty member Dot Doyle, the Alumni Leadership Committee, the Student Committee, Friends of the Food Drive, sponsors, partners, and the list could go on. I’ve said so many times that it really wasn’t about the world record… that would just be a cherry on top! And what a cherry it was.

But more importantly, I hope that throughout the process, our students and the entire community learned of the dire need facing our state. If there are more than 540,000 people at-risk of hunger in only 34 of North Carolina’s 100 counties, can you imagine how many people are at-risk of hunger in our entire state? It’s mind-boggling for sure. With that in mind, I think we can say that no matter how many hours it took, how many meetings, phone calls and e-mails, the food drive was worth it. NCSSM proved, yet again, that there is no challenge great enough that we can’t accomplish it with hard work and a lot of help from our friends.

Together we could, and together we DID.

- For more information, visit the NCSSM Food Drive website or Facebook page.

- Read about the Food Drive in the news.