Golden Celery Trophy Food Drive

Would your congregation like to be part of a fun competition to help people in our community?   Last year sixteen congregations collectively donated over 20,000 pounds of food to our emergency food pantries during the month of July as part of the Golden Celery Trophy Food Drive.  This year we are serving thousands more people per month than we did last year and so we are hoping our community partners will step up and help us meet the need again this summer.

A congregation can be part of the food drive just by donating food during the of July,  To compete for the trophy a congregation must also track attendance at worship services each weekend so that we can calculate donations per person.  If your congregation is interested in being part of the competition this year please register and let us know.

To count toward the competition for the trophy donations most be received between July 1, 2024, and July 31, 2024.

Top Donation needs for  this year's Food Drive

• Peanut butter
  
• Cereal
  
• Canned fruit/fruit cups
  
• Individual snacks (granola bars, etc.)
  
• Ramen 
  
• Crackers
  
• Canned tomatoes/tomato product
  
• Canned soup
  

History of the Golden Celery Competition

During the summer months children are out of school and families need more help with food.  Unfortunately, donations to food pantries generally go down during summer months.  More than ten years ago local congregations came up with a fun way to solve this problem by challenging each other to see who could donate the most pounds per person during the month of July.  The trophy to be awarded to the winning congregation would be a gold tinted can of dehydrated celery that was produced in the 1970s. 

This competition for 2023 was amazingly successful.  During the month of July sixteen congregations came together and donated 21,109.4 pounds of food to Crossroads Urban Center's food pantries.  Holladay United Church of Christ gave the most  pounds of food with a total of 4,086.9 pounds!  Mt. Tabor gave the most food per person -- donating 112 pounds per person attending worship services that month.