Over 43 years, there have been many changes to the Aberdeen-Hoquiam High School Foodball competition, but the site of the announcement of the final totals remains the same. Gathering in the PUD’s Cherry Street parking lot on Monday night, Foodball advisers announced that Aberdeen and Hoquiam students had combined to raise 1.26-million pounds of food for area foodbanks. Over ten days of “food raising” events, students collected cash donations totaling $125,576.10 (each dollar equals ten pounds of food) and 6,236 pounds of non-perishable food donations.
Since Foodball's creation in 1980, the PUD has been the chosen location for the announcement of the total amount of food collected. The utility's location, straddling the Hoquiam-Aberdeen city limits, makes it a neutral site for the announcement, along with the fact that for the first 30 years, the warehouse scales were used to weight the pallets of food. Organizers would then reveal which school had collected the most to the throngs of students and community members waiting along Cherry Street. While the school competition has since been cancelled in favor of a cooperative community wide drive, the announcement of the food totals is still a well-attended event and a chance for the PUD to host a moment displaying the caring and generosity of our community.