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8 November 2007
JSU's Participation in Cans Across America Aids Local Community

By Todd South
Star Staff Writer
11-08-2007


Reprinted here in its entirety.

Breaking a World Record? JSU Students Try to Collect Most Canned Goods in 24 Hours

JACKSONVILLE — Think longest fingernails, longest distance jumped on a pogo stick, hottest recorded temperature, and maybe most non-perishable food collected in 24 hours.

These are all the interesting, just plain weird, and sometimes charitable things people do to make their mark in the Guinness World Records.

Today is Guinness World Records Day.

While Guinness doesn’t list records or holders by location, there was a local attempt to break one of the records Wednesday.

All day, groups of Jacksonville State University students dropped off canned food with Kelly Raw at the Theron Montgomery Building.

The students were attempting to break the Guinness Record for most nonperishable food collected in a 24-hour period.

JSU wasn’t alone in its endeavors. Sodexho, a food and facilities management company that runs the university’s dining hall, coordinated the Cans Across America food drive at more than 280 campuses.

Raw, marketing administrator at the JSU location, said everyone from the Frisbee Club to the College of Commerce and Business brought in canned foods, which will be donated to the Jacksonville Christian Outreach Center.

Wednesday afternoon the College of Commerce and Business led the competition having donated more than 140 pounds.

Raw said the winning group will get a pizza party for 50 people.

She did not know when they group will find out if it broke the previous record of 221,028.85 pounds raised by Regina & District Food Bank, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Raw said the record and the friendly competition made the event fun for students, but the event was about much more than those things.

“The ultimate goal is to feed people who don’t have food,” Raw said. “A lot of people don’t recognize that we have hungry families in Jacksonville who don’t have food.”

Raw said last year the drive collected more than 800 pounds for the first Cans Across America.

Some records are made without even trying.

The giant office chair on Noble Street made the Guinness book in 1982.

Natalie Miller, CEO of Miller’s Office Furniture, said the chair was built in 1981 to “show people ‘here we are.’”

Miller said there was never any intention to set a record, but the chair did and it has since been featured in a comic strip, in area newspapers and on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

The 33-foot-tall, 10-ton structure is not listed in the 2007 edition of the record book, but neither are any other office chairs so it’s possible that it could still hold the record.

See story at The Anniston Star's website: www.annistonstar.com .

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