Black and Blue Recap

If you’ve been around 6 Stones for a while, you know that beginning in June, we start our sprint to the end of the year.  It starts with Operation Back 2 School, then we move to the CPR Fall Blitz and then turn around and head into Night of Wonder.  Also in that mix is our annual Black and Blue Showdown.  This was the fourth year for us to host this friendly competition between LD Bell and Trinity, to see which school could raise the most canned foods to benefit families in our community.  In the past, Black and Blue has been a fun event, where we’ve collected about 5,000-8,000 canned food items.  But back in the Spring, we began to dream and think about how we could take this event to the next level.

While we weren’t sure what it would look like or how it would work, we wanted to get every student in every school involved in the Black and Blue Showdown.  So we sat down with HEB ISD leaders and administrators and brainstormed several different ideas.  In the end, we decided to challenge each school to enter the competition.  Every school – from elementary to high school – participated in this year’s Black and Blue Showdown.  Moritz Kia stepped in to offer a $1,000 cash prize to the winning elementary, junior high, and high school!  Form there, we watched as administrators, teachers and students grabbed hold of an opportunity and took the Showdown to a whole new level – beyond our imagination!

Each school had a unique way of raising awareness on their campus.  Some schools offered incentives such as wearing pajamas or a hat in exchange for bringing a food item.  Other schools had competitions between classes or grades.  No matter how they did it,each school became truly invested, not just in a competition, but in a community-wide effort to raise food that will feed families in need.  Each week, as schools sent in their counts for the week, we were overwhelmed and grateful for the tremendous response!

We’ve always said here at 6 Stones that when this community knows about a need, it responds to meet that need.  The 2012 Black and Blue Showdown was no different.  When all said and done, 44,415 food items were collected across the district.  A huge “Thank You!” goes to Thompson Groups Classic Chevrolet for providing trucks to pick up the tons and tons of donated food!

Five months ago, we would have never imagined that a simple community-wide food drive would become such an overwhelmingly success!  It’s amazing what we can accomplish when we all work together.  We are so thankful to partner with a school district that supports the community and seeks to be a catalyst of hope!  Greater things are still to come!