Twenty pounds of Garden Catering chicken nuggets, six containers of sauce and a twenty-four pack of water were placed in the Mezzanine for students participating in the “Hunger Cleanup Eating Contest” on Tuesday, Feb. 28.
Observers watched as eight male competitors and one female competitor sat around two long tables. Paper towels with 15 nuggets were placed in front of every participant as the announcer let everyone know the rules.
The contestants were told that when they were done, they would be checked to make sure that they swallowed all their chicken for fairness.
The announcer counted down from five, and then the contest began. A group of student watchers ran over to one of the tables when the first winner was announced.
“It’s an accomplishment to win this competition,” said first place winner, Kenny Gilberg ‘12. “I felt as if I redeemed the title from when I lost a nugget-eating contest at a spring lacrosse game back in 2010.”
The Hunger Cleanup is made up of a group of students, faculty, staff and alumni from Fairfield University who volunteer to fix up sites in Bridgeport, Norwalk, Fairfield and Stamford for a whole day. This year will be the 22nd Hunger Cleanup.
Members of Fairfield Campus Ministry sponsored the event to raise money and awareness for the annual Hunger Cleanup. The charge of five dollars to participate in the eating contest and two dollars to watch was donated toward the cause .
“Every event that we do for Hunger Cleanup has an eating component,” said Wylie Blake, Campus Ministry community operations coordinator. “We were tossing around ideas for a while on what to eat. It was originally supposed to be a cupcake eating contest, then a cereal contest, and finally we chose chicken nuggets.”
The prizes were announced before the contest started: 1st place winning $50, 2nd placing winning $25, and 3rd place winning $15 in cash.
Blake mentioned that the event probably wouldn’t raise much money, but it would draw attention to the Hunger Cleanup event that was coming up.
On the way out, one of the competitors, Peter Lyons ’13, said, “I feel like a million bucks, I had a nicely catered dinner from Garden Catering and did something for a good cause. What more could I ask for?”
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