The Texas A&M Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and student-athletes are holding their annual food drive to give back to The 12th Can, A&M’s student-run open pantry and the Brazos Valley Food Bank.
Aggies Can is a canned food drive event run by the Texas A&M Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, or SAAC, and student-athletes. This food drive is an annual event that works to collect non-perishable foods and monetary donations in an effort to give back to The 12th Can and the Brazos Valley Food Bank. This year, from Oct. 24 to Nov. 6, Aggies Can will be holding a drive and collecting these donations which must be dropped off on Nov. 7 at Brookshire Brothers.
Although Aggies Can has grown into a large canned drive, it started off as a simple idea to have one collection at a football game. Over the past two decades, this event has grown to become a large and well-known event among the Aggie community. Vice President of Selfless Service for SAAC Alexis Ortiz said this event is the largest student-athlete-run canned drive in the nation.
“Aggies Can is also the largest student-athlete-run canned drive in the nation,” Ortiz said. “It’s completely student-run because the SAAC is completely student-run. We do all the logistics work and everything, and it’s all the work spread evenly between all the executive board members.”
Aggies Can partners with Whataburger, Brookshire Brothers, H-E-B and KBTX, which all donate to and support the cause of Aggies Can. Haley Redifer, the vice president of student-athlete development for SAAC, said the goal of this event is to raise enough money to provide around 50,000 meals.
“As long as I’ve been a part of SAAC, we’ve never not reached that,” Redifer said. “Brookshire Brothers donated another few thousand. They donate and others on the side. And then we also do collections at Brookshire Brothers as well. So we partner with both [H-E-B and Brookshire Brothers], and then they both donate.”
Kyle Stuce, vice president of records and finance for SAAC, said this event has impacted the Aggie community in many ways, including bringing the athletes and the entire community of A&M together.
“With athletes at least, I feel like it creates an environment to be bigger than ourselves,” Stuce said. “Because I feel like athletes get the stigma that [we’re] just really focused on ourselves. This gives us the ability to outreach and be a part of the community rather than just athletes at A&M. It gives us the ability to be bigger than just ourselves. It also lets us work together as a team.”
The whole purpose and driving force behind this event is to not only bring together the Aggie community but also give back to the community of Bryan-College Station.
“We’re trying to give back to our community,” Redifer said. “I think selfless service is a huge part of Texas A&M. The whole reason behind why we do this is to kind of get our student-athletes to give back to the community. We raise money, we do food donations and stuff like that. We really just want to capture the aspect of selfless service that’s important to them.”
As for their future plans for the growth of Aggies Can, the SAAC executive board hopes to continue growing and reaching more people and organizations on A&M’s campus and in the Bryan-College Station community.
“I think our goal is always just to reach more people,” Ortiz said. “We’d love to, you know, make the campus collection bigger, our athletics collections bigger and just spread the word to as many people as we can and just continue to grow every year.”
In order to engage other students and organizations, the SAAC executive board always tries to make this event fun and competitive. With different giveaways and prizes, they hope to encourage other people to donate and participate in Aggies Can.
“We’re also able to give prizes away that Whataburger gives us because we’re also partnered with Whataburger as well,” Stuce said. “So they’re able to at least help us in that sense as well.”
To learn more about how to donate to the Aggies Can food drive, visit the Aggies Can website.