He sat, waiting eagerly at halftime during the Wake Forest basketball game for the announcers to call him and the rest of the organizers to the court. They finally called on the competitors, the Big Four ACC schools, UNC-Chapel Hill, Wake Forest, N.C. State and Duke, the winners, in that order. Bobby Mills felt a mixed sense of pride and disappointment wash through him

Mills, a sophomore in political science, came up with the idea to have a canned food drive competition between the Big-4 ACC schools to raise cans and money for each school’s respective food bank.

“I got to walk on the court, and when everyone started clapping when we got the results, it kind of hit me like, ‘Wow, this is really cool,'” Mills said. “We actually did this.”

Although Mills said he was disappointed that NCSU lost to Carolina, it made him more determined to start planning for the 2007 food drive and to try and get as many schools as possible involved.

According to Mills, the drive was originally between UNC and Duke, and he then developed the idea to get more schools involved. He said although some of the campuses have organizations that support their drives, NCSU’s Student Government is assisting in allocating some money toward it.

This year’s drive is from Feb. 1 to Feb. 28.

Brooke Norman, this year’s drive director, said the organizers at NCSU are taking new marketing initiatives to advertise more about the drive.

“Last year, we raised $15,000,” Norman said. “So, this year, our goal is to get 20 to 25 [thousand dollars].”

Norman said the purpose of the drive is to raise awareness of hunger, especially in North Carolina.

“This year, we’re trying to get more people to know about it, to get more involvement,” Norman said.

According to Norman, various fraternities and campus organizations are getting involved in the drive this year at NCSU. At UNC, Franklin Street will be blocked off for a day, and a portion of the proceeds will go to the drive. Norman said she hopes next year NCSU can achieve that with Hillsborough Street.

“We want it to become as big of a competition as possible,” she said.

Ashley Jarvis, a senior in nutrition and biological sciences, said she is working to advertise the drive at basketball games at NCSU.

“We try to find volunteers to go to the games and collect money,” she said.

This year Jarvis and her team said they hope to advertise at both men’s and women’s basketball and baseball games.

According to Norman, the food bank prefers money to cans because it can buy cheaper food with the money and feed more people. Mills said the drive still includes cans because it is convenient for some people.

“Giving money doesn’t feel as worthy sometimes as giving food,” he said. “Also, some people just have cans laying around the house, and they don’t have the extra dollar or two to give to the can food drive,” he said.

Mills said one change the drive is implementing this year is not placing many boxes around campus to collect cans because doing so didn’t prove very fruitful last year. Instead, it will allow donors to donate money online at www.big4food.com.

The Alumni Association is also donating prizes for the donors who give the biggest amounts of money, according to Norman.

“The Wolfpack Club is also giving memorabilia and prizes for people who donate a lot,” she said.

Mills said that this year the nutrition classes are getting involved in the drive, and he also hopes to add an optional fee for students to donate money to the drive when paying tuition and fees in future years.

The competition is based on the student population of each campus, according to Mills so that the competition is fair, yet the competition still gets heated.

According to Mills, last year, the Duke organizers copied the layout of Carolina’s canned food drive site, and when one of the organizers from Carolina found out, he wrote a mock article and e-mailed it out about how Duke copyrighted its site.

Mills said when he searched for the article online, he found out it was fake.

Despite this rivalry and his desire to beat Carolina, Mills said he hopes the “other schools’ donations increase.”

Norman said she feels confident in NCSU’s ability to win.

“But I’ll be confident as long as we all give enough money to help the food bank — that’s our main goal,” she said.