Auburn University
EN-5: Outreach Campaign

BBFD hosts a 6-week canned food drive against our SEC counterpart, The University of Alabama’s Beat Auburn Beat Hunger, in a friendly competition to alleviate food insecurity in Alabama. The drive begins on October 1st and ends the week before the Iron Bowl. We are about to begin our 28th year. Students can apply to join the branches of our committee, staff, and executive boards but also participate without being a member. BBFD is active on social media, the concourse, hosting special events, and lighthearted competitions between different student groups in order to gain donations for our cause. These strategies are directed at employees as well because they are a part of the Auburn community. To find more information, our website is www.beatbamafooddrive.com.

Last year’s drive we collected 256, 152 pounds of food for the food bank. This amount collected was the second most in our history and came during the COVID-19 outbreak. That food will be instrumental in alleviating food insecurity in our Auburn community.

The Scaleback Alabama campaign is a weight-loss campaign. It was promoted to employees through the Healthy Tigers email list, Auburn News (the digital employee newsletter), in addition to other news sources and video displays throughout campus. By forming teams and offering prizes, employees were motivated to progress. Through email, participants received weekly healthy lifestyle tips and were connected to materials and resources on the Scaleback Alabama website. This included videos with a personal trainer, health tips, a directory of health experts, and other resources for healthy eating and exercising. The primary on-campus weigh-in location was the AUPCC, where weekly weigh-ins were hosted. The AUPCC is a public weigh in site and not limited to only employees, therefore they do not know how many participants were employees and how many were from the general public.

Again, the AUPCC was a public weigh in site and was not only for employees. However, at the AUPCC in 2019, they had 75 participants start the campaign, 28 end the campaign with 249 lbs lost.

Due to COVID, Auburn is unable to report any weight change data in 2020 and 2021. In 2020, they had 74 participants weigh-in but nobody weighed out due to COVID. In 2021, the format was changed to a monitor yourself format with no official sites for participants to weigh in or out.

In October 2021, the Student Government Association held the Fall Voter Registration Drive. The Drive was planned in an effort to civically engage more Auburn students and ensure that every voice is heard. We wanted to educate students on their voting impact and on their options for places to vote, ways to vote, and times to vote. and gave out “Auburn Votes” stickers. We registered five Auburn students and helped apply for two absentee ballots. Approximately 50 students picked up “I registered” stickers, signaling that they were already registered to vote. They were able to answer questions about upcoming election dates and questions about polling locations.

Paige Patterson, 334-844-8896, lanfokp@auburn.edu was the contact for the Scale Back Alabama campaign. Abby Ronson was the contact for SGA. The contact for BBFD was Jack Wray.