Written by
Dee Loflin, SMT Manager/Writer
Dexter, Missouri - As Christmas and New Year Holiday donations for food have all but “ran out of time” for the shelves of the Stoddard County Mission’s food pantry, the 1st Annual ShowMe Times March Madness Food Drive aims to score big with lots of food.
The food drive is patterned after the national spring college basketball tournament, matching up businesses in weekly competitions to see which one can bring in the most food. The winning business in each bracket will advance to continue play in the following week.
“Let’s make a full-court press to stock the food pantry”! exclaimed Kim Slavings, Director of the Stoddard County Gospel Mission.
Here is the game plan for the March Madness Food Drive. We are asking local businesses to go head-to-head in an all out battle to see who can collect the MOST ITEMS of food for the Stoddard County Gospel Mission. Each business will have an entry fee of $100 to participate with some of the proceeds going to the Stoddard County Gospel Mission. Slavings commented, "This is a great idea and it’s a win-win for us at the Stoddard County Gospel Mission. We can get so much community involvement when the food is needed the most."
The ShowMe Times will announce the participating businesses on March 1st. Anyone in the community who wishes to donate to those businesses may do so. You don't have to be an employee to donate. "We want everyone who goes into one of those businesses to drop off something that the Mission can utilize," stated Dee Loflin, Manager of the ShowMe Times.
Then each Friday in the month (March 8, 15, 22, Thursday 28th as Friday is a holiday and the Mission will not be open) the Stoddard County Gospel Mission will help with receiving the donations from those businesses. The Mission will also help calculate the winners in each bracket and assist the ShowMe Times with scoring.
Each business can bring their donations anytime during the week, but the food must be at the Stoddard County Gospel Mission no later than 3:00 p.m. on the dates above.
To ensure that businesses of all sizes are able to compete on a level playing field, the ShowMe Times will use a unique scoring system. The total number of food items donated by a business will be divided by the total number of employees in that business, resulting in their score for that week. That way large businesses with lots of employees are on equal grounds with perhaps a very small business.
Now this is where it gets interesting! We don't want businesses to stop playing or taking in donations of food once they have "lost" in their bracket. Losing businesses now have an advantage to "block" their former opponents by donating their food to the Stoddard County Gospel Mission in one of the business's who is still participating and so forth. When it's down to the final game (week) all businesses can "slam dunk" their donations towards one of the two finalists to help them win!
The ShowMe Times will keep you informed weekly as to the winners and losers, their scores and how many items have been donated. Hopefully there will be some friendly competitions.
"We need non-perishables such as can goods, spaghetti, rice, cereal, beans, peanut butter, soups, mac & cheese, canned tuna, canned vegetables, noodles, spaghetti sauce, drink mix packages, ramen noodles, boxed cornbread, just about anything that is non-perishable and folks would eat regularly." stated Slavings. "You wouldn't believe how many of the elderly we see on a fixed income and they are so appreciative of anything we can offer."
The winning business will receive recognition in the community receiving three months of front-page advertising with the ShowMe Times. And of course the big winner will be the people in our community who get their food from the Mission.
“This is an awesome opportunity to pull everyone together to help those in need in Stoddard County,” stated Loflin. “It is also a great way to showcase those businesses who are helping one another in our community.”
Businesses wishing to participate should contact the ShowMe Times no later than Thursday, February 28th. They may call 573-624-7469 or 573-380-3318 or emailing us at news@showmetimes.com
The winner of the 1st March Madness Food Drive will be announced on April 1, 2013.
Stoddard County businesses, WE NEED YOUR HELP! Let's show The Mission what we can do for them!
