Food Frenzy 2017 is in the books- and it was a SUPER experience. This annual event is highly anticipated at the firm, and is two fun-filled weeks of activities and challenges all to raise money for Food Lifeline.
Some startling facts:
- Every year, nearly 40% of our country's food ends up in landfills, while millions go hungry.
- Food Lifeline takes this food and delivers to 275 food banks, shelters and meal programs across Western Washington.
- Food Lifeline provides 90,000 meals to our hungry neighbors EVERY DAY!
- $1 provides 4 meals
- Summer is especially hard when school is out and school meals aren't available. Of the 350,000 children in Western Washington who rely on free and reduced lunch, only 11% are accessing a similar meal in the summer.
To learn more about hunger in our community click here.
That's where Food Frenzy comes in. For two weeks (this year from July 14th-28th) over 100 companies in the area creatively compete to raise funds to feed these children. From Freaky Food Fest to Shareholder car washes the challenge is on and we take it very seriously! In fact, Sweeney Conrad is excited to say that we exceeded our $10,000 goal and raised a total of $12,772.50 for Food Lifeline! We're proud to say that's 2 full truckloads (or 80,000 lbs. of fresh produce) and 10 families fed for an entire year! Special thanks go to our Nina Dang who has been helping organize this fun event for 7 years!
Here's a look at all of this year's Sweeney Conrad Food Frenzy events!
The excitement started in our office on Monday with a kick-off breakfast and a rallying of our superheroes! We introduced Super Sweeney who would be our measure of how close we came to hitting our goal of $10,000! The more money we raised, the more he came to life! By the end of the two weeks he was in full color!
Tuesday we had our first opportunity to volunteer in the warehouse! We sorted nutritional and supplemental food for a new campaign Food Lifeline is working on. Together we were able to sort 7,083 lbs. of food for stamp out hunger, creating 5,902 meals!
Thursday was our first annual SC Summer Summit. The office was transformed into a 9-hole putt putt course, featuring food and superhero-themed holes that each highlighted a fact about hunger in our state.
Next up was Freaky Food Fest. This gag-worthy event was an opportunity for Sweeney Conrad team members to buy-in on the experience of tasting some really freaky food. The person who can make it through the most rounds and last the longest wins. This years freaky food included Vegemite, durian chips, hot dog martinis, anchovy paste, crickets and Sriracha-covered marshmallows. This year, aside from Dave Miniken who went out on the crickets (check out his "cricket face" in the first picture) all contestants made it through to the final round- the marshmallows. Michael Holmes finished strong by eating the Sriracha-covered marshmallows completely in the shortest amount of time!
That weekend we were able to volunteer at the Bite downtown, in The Alley- and then Monday the superheroes were back in action at the Food Lifeline warehouse. This time they sorted 15,553 lbs. of assorted products providing over 12,960 servings!
While our superheroes were sorting, the shareholders were washing....cars that is! The annual Shareholder car wash was a blast!
Next up was the Around the World Lunch- a potluck designed to taste international dishes prepared by Sweeney Conrad team members. From shrimp ceviche burritos to vegetable samosas it was a delicious way to raise money to combat hunger in Western Washington. This was all happening while the Sweeney Conrad Ping Pong Food Lifeline Tournament was being played.
The next day was the Bake Sale. A sweet Sweeney Conrad tradition!
Finally we created the very first Pets of SC calendar. Team members were invited to enter their pets into the calendar, and then we got to vote on our cover models!
Food Frenzy 2017 was an amazing success and we look forward to 2018!!!