Jan. 25, 2013

IRVING (C-USA/SMU) - As part of Conference USA's "Let's SAAC Hunger" initiative, SMU's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) collected over 1,500 canned goods and $1,300 during this year's drive, accounting for over 5,000 meals or 9,406 pounds, all of which benefitted the North Texas Food Bank.

Each C-USA school worked within its respective communities to conduct a campus-wide canned food drive for one week during the fall semester, and each institution selected a local food bank to receive their donations. All monetary donations were converted into pounds for the competition. Conference-wide, more than 33 tons of food (66,375.44 pounds) were collected, which equates to more than 55,000 meals. The total was an increase of more than 6,000 pounds from a year ago.

SMU collected over three times last year's totals (2,864.74) and finished in third place behind Tulsa and Memphis. Ten C-USA schools collected more than 2,000 pounds of food donations during their drive week.

For more information about SMU's SAAC click here.