After a tough loss to Pleasant Valley in 2022, Bettendorf High School hoped to redeem themselves in the 2023 student hunger drive.

The hunger drive is a competition between schools in the Quad City area that started in the late 1980’s. The hunger drive spans six weeks, and during those weeks, each school’s student council holds many activities to try to get the community involved in raising the most amount of food and money for the River Bend Food Bank.

Pleasant Valley and Bettendorf are always neck and neck when it comes to any kind of competition, and the hunger drive is no different. 

“Every year that I can remember and looking back in the archives it’s been PV and Bettendorf in first and second,” Finn Boyle said.

The hunger drive ended on Nov. 9, and the amount of food each school collected was counted. Bettendorf students waited in anticipation, hoping to top Pleasant Valley. After all the food was counted, it was announced that PV took first place and Bettendorf got second. The Bettendorf student council was disappointed with the place they got, but not with the outcome as a whole.

“We would always like to beat PV, but it’s not our focus,” student council advisor Kaitlin Mahoney said.

BHS was able to collect 63,000 pounds of food for the River Bend Food Bank. The 63,000 pounds of food collected is equivalent to 178,000 meals for families in need.

“It’s going towards a good cause and all the schools are coming together for a common goal,” Jordan Martens said. 

Even though all the schools are competing, they are still trying to get a substantial amount of food to the River Bend Food Bank.

Recently, The River Bend Food Bank has been struggling because of an increase in the need for food, but a decrease in the amount of donations. The food bank needed help from the community, and with the top two schools getting over 150,000 pounds of food, help is certainly what they got.