Hometown Rivalry Food Drive brings in 16,000 items

WAYLAND — A friendly rivalry between WACO and Winfield-Mt. Union community school districts resulted in a win for both communities’ food pantries as they competed for the most food pantry donations leading up to their football game, last Friday, Sept. 10.

According to Bartels, Wayland State Bank has a tradition of hosting a Hometown Rivalry food drive every year when the two schools go head-to-head in football.

Each community donates items to their respective branches and the bank keeps a tally of which school brings in the most canned goods which are then donated to each of the locate food pantries.

“This is a big-time rivalry,” Bartels said. “We all know that, and it has been that way forever before him and I were even around.”

While the food drive taken place well before this year, Bartels says that the schools themselves have not been very involved, until now.

This year, the two principals decided to raise the stakes by putting themselves into the game.

So, they decided they would wear each other’s jerseys according to who won and then go serve lunch for the other school.

“OK, Wayland State Bank! Mr. Gaige Gill at WMU Wolves and I would like in on this too!” Bartels wrote to Wayland State Bank that puts on the Hometown Rivalry food drive each year.

“When the Wayland branch brings the most donated items Mr. Gill will wear a WACO Jersey for the entire game, and if the Winfield branch brings the most goods, I will begrudgingly wear a WMU Jersey for the game,” he laid out the stakes. “Also, when the Wayland branch wins, Mr. Gill will come to serve WACO student lunch for a day, and if the Winfield branch wins, I will go serve WMU students’ lunch for a day!”

Just like that the trash talking and donations began to roll in.

“Word on the street is WACO has been collecting food items since before the start of the competition,” WMU Wolves cheekily shared to social media. “So, let’s pull together for Mr. Gill and bring those food items so the WACO principal has to come serve lunch at WMU!!”

WMU started off strong with a lead of 164-80 items in Wayland State Bank’s first update, and they continued to hold a strong lead at 480-376 items with only a few days left before the bank announced the winner at the football game Friday night.

“There’s been a dramatic turn of events and the Wayland branch has stolen the lead from the Winfield branch,” Wayland State Bank announced as they updated the score board to reflect that WACO took the lead at 853-480 items only a few hours later. “Will this be the Cinderella story the Wayland branch has been waiting for?”

WACO began to slip as the scoreboard showed 1,304-1,067 giving WMU the lead the morning of the big game.

By the time the game rolled around, however, the tables had turned once again, and WACO left WMU in the dust with a 12,000-4,000 item victory.

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com