The competitive spirit of Cowtown came alive this summer as government departments and neighborhoods faced off to see who could donate the most food and money to the Tarrant Area Food Bank (TAFB).
Together the city of Fort Worth donated enough food and money to provide almost 300,000 meals for the TAFB, said Angela Rush, city of Fort Worth human relations administrator.
The competition’s winners, the internal audits division and the Monticello Neighborhood Association, donated the most money and combined meals per person in the office or per occupied household (based on census data).
“I find it funny that internal audits who has 13 employees beat out every department,” Rush said. “They work it.”
The winners will be recognized during a City Council meeting later this month.
The second and third place finishers, the City Manager’s Office and the City Secretary’s Office, along with the Riverwood Homeowners Association and the Tanglewood Neighborhood Association, will receive certificates for their achievements.
Tanglewood resident and TAFB employee Amie Hedbige said she thought the Tanglewood food drive went fantastic as they collected 764 pounds of food and more than $1,000 in donations.
“They really listened and responded to the protein request,” Hedbige said. “We had lots of canned tuna, chicken, beans, some of those items that we are desperately low on in the summer months.”
Rush said city employees used the canned drive as a chance to bring out their competitive side and even issued challenges to each other internally.
“Municipal courts threw down the gauntlet,” Rush said. “They said were going to increase their collection and they did.”
Rush said it seems as if many offices followed municipal courts’ challenge since collection increased by 2.5 percent since last year, an increase that the TAFB director of communications, Andrea Helms, said was because of the commitment from the city.
“We really appreciate all the time and effort they put into to make it larger and better than ever,” Helms said.