World-record chasing food drive organizers take campaign to Net

February 6, 2010
By Matthew E. Milliken
mmilliken@heraldsun.com; 419-6684

DURHAM – A local group is involving the World Wide Web in its effort to break a world record.

On Tuesday, the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina launched a “virtual food drive” Web site. The page allows it to gather donations on behalf of an effort by the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics to break the Guinness world record for amount of comestibles collected in a single-day, single-site food drive.

The Web site, which can be accessed at www.foodbankcenc.org/VFD_NCSSM, is being used to gather funds that will in turn buy food that will officially be collected at the Science and Math campus March 20. Because the Food Bank is able to buy in bulk, each dollar can purchase the equivalent of four meals.

The Food Bank will distribute items gathered in the food drive, which is aiming to beat the mark of 254.6 tons collected in a 2008 Canadian effort.

In other food drive developments, two TV stars have given signed items to be raffled off to individuals who donate food at the Science and Math campus March 20.

Jensen Ackles, star of “Supernatural,” has donated a signed trading card of himself as well as a set of sealed “Supernatural” season 1 trading cards, according to Science and Math’s main food drive organizer, Sue Anne Lewis. Ackles’ fiance, actress Danneel Harris of “One Tree Hill,” has sent the school an autographed vest from the show.

A few other raffle prizes have been donated this week. Food drive participants will be able to win gift certificates from Mad Hatter’s, Broad Street Cafe and Parker and Otis.

Also, the event has confirmed its first celebrity appearance. Lauren Ashley Martz, Miss North Carolina Teen USA 2010, will be on campus for the food drive between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. The Salisbury resident actually has a connection to the state-run two-year Durham high school, according to her Web site. Martz is studying medicinal chemistry through a Science and Mathematics distance-learning course.

©The Herald-Sun

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>> NCSSM Food Drive promo video
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