By CAMERON FULLER
BYU communications students' philanthropic efforts have left two of their professors with a sweet taste in their mouths -- and whip cream all over their faces.
A food-gathering competition held among public relations, advertising and journalism students came to an official end when Laurie Wilson, chair of the communications department and a PR advisor, got to shove a whip cream pie in the faces of William Porter, journalism professor, and Daniel Stout, advertising professor.
'It feels good, it feels therapeutic,' Stout said while cleaning the pie from his face.'
The competition served as a motivation tool for the students to donate food. For one week boxes were located at the communications head office where students could bring nonperishable food to give to the Food and Care Coalition of Provo.
At the end of the week, student volunteers went to Albertson's, Food-4-Less, Ream's and Smith's and asked shoppers to buy an additional can of food and place it in a collection box for the coalition on the way out.
Seven hundred ninety-two pounds of food worth over $1,300 was either donated or collected by the students. The public relations students won by a sizable margin and contributed over 600 of those pounds.
Gina Blaser, a senior from Boise, Idaho majoring in public relations, was one of the students in charge of the contest and was happy with the way it turned out.
'We got a lot of food and we didn't think we would get as much as we did. A lot of people were willing to donate,' Blaser said.
She said the need for food is great and too often people picture the end users of this food as irresponsible citizens who are trying to live off of others' hard work. Blaser said the Food and Care Coalition mostly helps families with children and the elderly who are barely making it from paycheck to paycheck.
Blaser cited a teaching from The Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ, 'by small and simple things are great things brought to pass' as the background idea for the campaign's theme of 'I CAN Make a Difference'.
'We just want people to see the big perspective. They think of it just as a can when actually it is a meal,' Blaser said.
Porter said the pie in the face was worth helping out a good cause and he would sign up again for next year's competition.
'It's a good cause and a lot of good effort went into it,' he said.