HOLLADAY, Utah — A friendly competition between Unified police officers, firefighters and Holladay City employees helped deal with food insecurity in one community.
Kate Kaufman is an Olympus High School senior, student body officer and a Sterling Scholar. She said she has learned some real-life lessons by volunteering at her school's food pantry.
"We kind of, sometimes live in a bubble in our communities," Kaufman explained. "We don't get to see just even across the street or down the road, kids in our own school that you wouldn't expect that are in need."
The need for food never ends, nor does the job of keeping shelves stocked for students in need.
This holiday season, pantries at Olympus and Cottonwood High got a big boost thanks to Holladay first responders.
"We know that these food pantries, it's not just this time of year, they need support year-round," explained Dep. Chief Justin Hoyal with the Unified Police Department.
In an attempt to bring some relief to the pantries, unified police officers, firefighters and city employees in Holladay agreed to a contest to see who could secure the most donations.
"It's one of those things that a lot of the officers really got involved in, we had a lot of great support from the community and from several businesses and the schools and it was just something fun for us to be able to come together and be able to give back to the community here in Holladay," Hoyal said.
The teams collected a table full of food along with several thousand dollars in cash donations, which will be distributed to both high school pantries.
Even though the drive is complete, Hoyal said pantries will always take donations.
"Even though this competition, this food battle we participated in is over, if people are still wanting to give, they can certainly reach out to the food pantries or even us," he said. "We'll help connect them with those officials."
The Unified Police Department wound up "winning" the competition, but Hoyal said the real winners were the two food pantries who will now have a little extra to give to those in need.
