MENASHA, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Usually police officers work on the same team to keep citizens safe, but for the last three months, there’s been a rivalry in the Fox Valley.
Fox Valley Metro Police Officer Michael Lambie explains it to WLUK.
“First month, January, I believe Appleton PD took the crown, but February I’m proud to say Fox Valley Metro did take the lead,” said Fox Valley Metro Police Officer Michael Lambie.
“In February Fox Valley Metro snuck in right at the end and got a huge donation,” added Appleton Police Sergeant Dave Lund.
Eight valley police agencies are taking part in ‘Arresting Hunger’ to benefit St. Joseph Food Program.
Over four months they’re competing to see who can take in the most donations of certain staple food items.
This being the first year, Lund says the expectations weren’t very high.
“We thought maybe we’d get a couple bags full of peanut butter”
The departments combined collected more than three tons of peanut butter in January and more than three tons of jelly in February. They’re collecting tuna this month.
Scott Schefe, operations manager for St. Joseph Food Service, is impressed.
“They blew us away in January with Peanut butter. They did even remarkably better with jelly”
If you’d like to help out by making a donation you can go to your nearest department and inside the lobby you should find a box where you can place your donations.
“Eight agencies throughout the valley so there’s probably a department close to you,” Lambie said.
Lambie says St. Joe’s provides food for 30 area agencies and shelters and for more than 800 families.
“Covers their output for eight months. So that’s eight months of food for our community for those staple items they need” That allows St. Joe’s to buy more fresh foods for clients.
To keep the donations rolling in, Lambie says the departments use a little healthy competition.
“We try to have a little fun with some of our social media posts. It creates awareness. It’s all for the greater good”
And it seems to be working.
“Phenomenal response from the community, which really shouldn’t be surprising. We know how generous our community is,” said Lund.
For the month of April.. the departments will be collecting pasta, and pasta sauces.
April is the last month of this year’s contest. It’ll start again next January.
