WESTFIELD–While the loss in the big game for the New England Patriots was a letdown for some in the area, the city of Westfield used the event to help collect over 3,100 soup cans that will be donated to the Westfield Food Pantry.
Rebecca Hart from the Westfield Food Pantry sits among various city staff and the soup cans collected.
For about two weeks before the NFL Championship game this past weekend, the city’s Personnel Department held a Souper Bowl collecting a total of 3,149 canned goods that will be donated to the Westfield Food Pantry. According to Personnel Director Jane Sakiewitz, the effort turned into a competition between city departments, including the fire, police and emergency dispatching departments, to see which department could raise the most–and also earn a pizza party.
“We’re delighted to have so much,” Rebecca Hart of the Westfield Food Pantry said, among the columns of cans that lined the personnel department’s office Tuesday morning.
A “throne” of soup cans among the several columns of collections from the city’s various departments Tuesday morning.
According to Hart, it is the months of January to March each year that the food pantry struggles with donations. She said that this is due to two reasons–the cost of heating going up this time of year, and donors going down due to the cost of Christmas each year.
Hart said that the cans will help a lot of people and will also benefit the schools, as the Food Pantry also works with the Westfield Schools. One such project Hart noted is the “Steel Toe Boot Program” through Westfield Technical Academy, which allows donors to purchase boots for students.
According to Westfield Mayor Brian Sullivan, the collection started as an idea, but then “turned into a competition” between departments to see who could donate the most cans.
He said that the departments did a phenomenal job. 
Sakiewitz said that department that donated the most cans overall was the police department, who donated 780. They were followed by dispatch with 632, then the fire department with 289 to round out the top three.
Percentage-wise however, the emergency dispatch department is the leader, donating 49 percent of cans per department employee. This was 20 percent higher than the second-highest percentage-wise, which was the personnel department at 29 percent.
