Golden Celery Trophy Food Drive

Every July local congregations compete to see who can donate the most food per person to Crossroads Urban Center's two food pantries.  Seventeen congregations participated in the Golden Celery Trophy Food Drive in 2025, and they collectively donated 20, pounds. We are so grateful to the hundreds of people who contributed.

Here are the total pounds per person donated by the top three congregations in 2025:

1. Centenary United Methodist Church-- 71.2 pounds per person,
2. First Congregational Church-- 65.3 pounds per person, and,
3. First United Methodist Church-- 64.5 pounds per person.​

In addition to the Golden Celery Trophy for the congregation that donates the most food per person, we also  award certificates to participating congregations to acknowledge work they have done.

• Congregations that donate between 1 and 999 pounds receive a Gold Certificate. 
• Congregations that donate between 1,000 and 1,999 pounds receive a Platinum Certificate. 
• Congregations that donate between 2,000 and 2,999 pounds receive would receive a Double Platinum Certificate​
• ​Congregations that donate between 3,000 and 3,999 pounds receive a Triple Platinum Certificate.

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.