Huntingdon SAAC heads athletic teams’ community service effort

MONTGOMERY, Ala.  – The Huntingdon Student-Athlete Advisory Committee recently helped raise a collection of more than 6,000 items for the Montgomery Area Food Bank.

The effort was part of the USA South Athletic Conference's Cans Across the Conference food drive. All 18 member institutions of the USA South collected non-perishable items to benefit local charities of their choosing.   

As a whole, the conference collected 69,387 items. The total was the largest in the history of the community service program and an increase of more than 5,300 items from 2018. In the 16 years the conference has sponsored the initiative, 575,168 items have been donated.

Huntingdon student-athletes collected 6,052 items, the most yet by the Hawks in the seven years they have taken part in the program. Huntingdon's collection was the third most in the conference.

"I'm very proud of our teams for coming together and collecting more than 6,000 items this year," SAAC Advisor Courtney Harville said. "It was awesome having three teams bring in more than 1,000 items each. Our student-athletes pushed each other in the competition and were bringing more items just before the deadline so they could win. It was because of them that we were able to double our total from last year and set a single-year school record."

Huntingdon was among nine conference schools to increase its Cans Across the Conference collection amount from 2018 and one of six to set a new single-year record for donations.

"During the past semester, our sports teams have been collecting items to donate to the Montgomery Area Food Bank," SAAC President and senior women's lacrosse player Alex Teague said. "We made it a competition between our teams to see who could raise the most, while also competing with the other schools in the USA South Conference. We came in third place and collected more than 6,000 items. Overall, it was very successful." 

For a fifth straight year, Averett University led the conference in collections. The Cougars donated a total of 29,191 items to charities in Danville, Va.