The University Athletic Training Student Association aims to “can the Bulldogs,” leading up to LSU’s football game against Georgia.The association is participating in a food drive competition against University of Georgia’s Sports Medicine Club, said Erin Greenwich, kinesiology senior and Athletic Training Student Association president.It is collecting non-perishable food contributions, which will be donated to the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank at the end of the two week competition. The winner will be announced when LSU plays Georgia in Athens, Ga., on Oct. 3.The association is partnered with the CHAMPS Life Skills program in the Academic Center for Student Athletes, Greenwich said.”It’s a good thing for the students to be doing,” said Jade Jenkins, assistant director for diversity, inclusion and civic engagement for the CHAMPS program. “At the same time, it’s all the [Southeastern Conference] schools working together to give back to our communities.”Mike Manning, president and CEO of the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank, told The Daily Reveille on July 9 that funding for the food bank has been cut dramatically in the recent economic downturn.”It’s going to be a dramatic reduction in the amount of food we can purchase,” he said. “Especially at a time when we’re seeing an increase in need because of the economic downturn.”The CHAMPS program was already participating in the “Together We Can” food drive with other SEC schools when the Athletic Training Student Associations competition began, so the two groups combined their efforts.”The SEC [‘Together We Can’] food drive is not really a competition,” Jenkins said. “It’s just basically partnering together to do a community service event to raise awareness and give back to our local food banks.”The clubs will collect donations at all the home sporting events until Sept. 27, Jenkins said, and the groups also have collection bins inside the Cox Communications Academic Center.”The softball team came out and helped collect cans at the two volleyball games over the weekend, and this weekend we are going to have student athletes at the two soccer games to collect and get the word out about giving to the food bank,” Jenkins said.Greenwich said along with the collection bins at the sporting events, the club recruited about 12 local high schools to participate. The high school donating the most will receive 500 dollars in medical-related supplies from an Athletic Training Student Association sponsor.Greenwich said the groups are planning to hold the competition every year LSU and Georgia play football against each other.–Contact Xerxes A. Wilson at [email protected]