The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics was founded in 1980 as the nation’s first public, residential high school.
On March 5, the school made another historic achievement: setting the Guinness World Record for the largest food drive in one location in a 24-hour time period. The school collected 559,885 pounds of food to benefit the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina.
According to Sue Anne Lewis, project coordinator, the proceeds from this event alone will feed hundreds of people in the community during the next year.
“According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average American eats 1,996.3 pounds of food per year,” Lewis said. “We just fed 280 people for a year.”
Lewis also said the school is waiting for official approval of the record from Guinness. She said she hopes they will be in the next book of world records.
“[Guinness] explicitly states that breaking a record does not guarantee that you will be in the book,” Lewis said.
The only high school in the multi-campus UNC System and the most recent addition to the system, NCSSM is a tuition-free residential magnet school for high school juniors and seniors specializing in mathematics and sciences. Students apply in the fall of their sophomore year of high school and are selected to attend based on congressional district. There are approximately 600 students enrolled at the school.
This is the second year the school has held a food drive. According to Lewis, also a student life instructor, the idea for a record-setting food drive surfaced around January last year. Unfortunately, they came up short.
“Despite not getting the world record last year, we collected 319,990 pounds of food,” Lewis said. “There wasn’t one reason to hold our heads down after that attempt and we were so excited of what we were able to accomplish in just a few months of planning.”
Last year’s shortcoming was enough motivation for Lewis and students to try again – and succeed.
This year, however, the committee had a lot more resources at its disposal, including an entire year to plan. Local universities, including N.C. State, were also involved with the efforts.
Linwood Joyner, a junior in biological sciences, is co-chair of the Student Government Community Service Commission and helped lead the Howlin’ for Hunger event at the men’s basketball game Feb. 26.
According to Joyner, the commission had already decided to host a food drive to benefit the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina – the same benefactor of the NCSSM Food Drive – when they heard about NCSSM’s efforts.
“When realizing that N.C. State has so many NCSSM alumni and when considering that this was for a wonderful cause, we felt that we could help NCSSM, especially since we were going to have a food drive anyway,” Joyner said.
The amount of food collected exceeded the commission’s goal of 1,000 pounds. “We collected 1,102 pounds of food,” Joyner said. “We were excited that we surpassed the goal we set for ourselves.”
According to Katelyn Montgomery, a senior at NCSSM, the spirit of the drive reflects the values of the school and its students, which helped gain a lot of momentum for the drive.
“A graduation requirement is to complete 60 hours of community service with a non-profit organization and many of our students go above and beyond this requirement,” Montgomery said. “We take pride in being able to give back to others, which is the epitome of what the food drive was all about.”
“This is why we were able to get such great support from the students, faculty and staff at NCSSM,” Montgomery said.
Montgomery also said the drive helped strengthen NCSSM’s relationship with the Durham community.
“The relationships we made with the community will last a long time,” Montgomery said.
Andrew Stowe, a junior at NCSSM, said there were also other corporate sponsors, including Walmart and the Church of Latter Day Saints.
“[Walmart and the Church of Latter Day Saints] brought in almost 150,000 pounds of food, which really put us over the edge,” Stowe said.
According to Andrea Ruddock, a freshman in biological sciences and member of the student committee, the food drive’s uniqueness is what made it successful.
“Part of [the food drive’s] success was due to the fact that this drive had such a heart for feeding the hungry rather than just beating a record,” Ruddock said. “So many people felt involved and proud to be a part of something so life changing.”
The University was also involved in another facet of the food drive through Mr. Wuf.
“Mr. Wuf attended our pep rally and definitely helped to pump up the students,” Lewis said. “He was a lot of fun and the students really enjoyed having him on campus. He also helped welcome the official mascot of NCSSM in his first ever public appearance.”
Since the school met its goal to break the Guinness World Record, Lewis plans to take a vacation from attempting to break world records in the future.
“Next year I envision having a food drive, just not a Guinness World Record drive,” Lewis said. “In the future, if the record gets broken, I’ll consider doing it again.”
