Hastings Museum and Stuhr Museum Team Up To Help the Hungry This Holiday Season

GRAND ISLAND, STUHR MUSEUM — The Hastings Museum and Stuhr Museum are engaging in a little friendly competition to make the holidays a little brighter for those going without this season.

The two museums plan a joint food drive called “Sharing Through the Season,” beginning Saturday, November 22 and running through the end of 2008. Both museums are interested in raising food and donations for local food pantries in Grand Island and Hastings and by challenging each other, hope to motivate the community to lend a helping hand during the last few weeks of 2009.

The museum, and by extension the community, raising the most food during the drive will possess bragging rights through all next year. Food raised by Stuhr Museum in Grand Island will go to the Salvation Army Food Pantry while the Hastings Museum is raising donations for The Food Pantry in Hastings. Both museums are asking the public to purchase canned and boxed food items and drop them off at the museums before January 1.

The “Sharing Through the Season” drive coincides with two big events at each museum: Hastings Museum’s 27th Annual Festival of Trees beginning November 21 and Stuhr Museum’s Christmas Past and Present events, Dec. 5, 12, 13 & 14. Both events draw thousands of local residents to the museums, and the hope is each person will bring a food item with them.

“The idea behind ‘Sharing Through the Season’ is to provide food for those who would otherwise go without,” Joe Black, Stuhr Museum Executive Director, said. “It is going to be fun putting Grand Island against Hastings to see who comes out on top.”

“We look forward to a little friendly competition with our rivals to the north,” said Becky Matticks, director of the Hastings Museum. “But the real goal of this competition is to fill the shelves at the area food pantries.”

Food donations to Stuhr Museum can be taken to the Stuhr Building from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and Noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday, or left in the sleigh outside the museum’s gates at any time. Food donated to the Hastings Museum can be dropped off 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and Noon to 6 p.m. on Sunday.

For more information on the “Sharing Through the Season” food drive, please contact Hastings Museum Marketing Director Drew Ceperley at (800) 508-4629 or via e-mail at dceperley@hastingsmuseum.org, or Stuhr Museum Marketing Director Mike Bockoven at (308) 385-5316 ext. 208 or via e-mail at marketing@stuhrmuseum.org.