In the past, for the Food-A-Thon Family Fun Night, Harrison and Leesburg elementary schools have taken on each other in basketball and volleyball.
For the sixth annual event Thursday, a single-elimination tournament will feature the schools’ staffs playing dodgeball, and Jefferson and Lincoln elementaries have been invited.
“We want to make it bigger to help CCS,” said Lee Snider, Harrison principal.
All non-perishable food items collected during the event go to Combined Community Services.
Snider said doors will open at 6 p.m. at Lakeview Middle School, with the event starting at 6:30 p.m. Lakeview Principal Jon Lippe will open the event up with an introduction of the school and himself.
“It’s a good way to meet the families who will go to Lakeview Middle School next year,” Snider said.
Admission is two cans of food per person. Every additional two cans of food gets a person a raffle ticket for one of many door prizes. Anyone is welcome to attend.
If a sixth-grader from any of the four schools brings a total of five canned food item, they can participate in a sixth-grader dodgeball tournament.
“Our goal would be to double what we did last year because we opened it up to two more schools,” Snider said. “We want to do what we can to help the food bank.”
The four participating schools in the Food-A-Thon this year are the elementary schools that feed into Lakeview. “In terms of planning for this, it’s really been a collective effort on all four of the schools,” Snider said.
Previously, the responsibility of organizing the event rotated from school to school. This year, the schools are sharing the work.
Many of the raffle items for the event are food related, including coupons and gift cards to area restaurants. However, there also will be Indiana University basketball tickets in the raffle, and Lake City Radio is providing concert tickets for Demi Lavoto for the auction. The radio stations also are emceeing the event.
“The biggest support we get is really the radio stations. They’ve been getting the big ticket items and advertising it all week,” Snider said.
“Every school was in charge of getting businesses to donate,” Snider said. “The focus was on what kids would like.”
About 40 businesses have been solicited for prizes. The value of the prizes range from $5 and up.
“Everyone gave us something,” Snider said. “We tried to tie them to food as much as possible as it’s a food-a-thon. We want to help as many kids as we can.”
Drawings for the door prizes will be held after each game.
During the Food-A-Thon dodgeball tournament, there will be concessions by the Harrison Elementary Student Council, with proceeds going to the council.
“The kids are doing the work for that, so the money goes to them,” Snider said.
The school operating concessions will rotate each year, he said.
Last week, Harrison held its own food drive during Red Ribbon Week, with food collected going toward the Food-A-Thon total. The food drive ended today, with the class collecting the most items getting a pizza party.
Physical education teacher Scott Mehlberg will deliver Harrison’s collection to the Food-A-Thon.
Harrison collected “quite a bit of food,” Snider said.
