The legendary Jayhawk-Tiger rivalry is going virtual.

For the third year in a row, the Student Alumni Leadership Board is holding the Border Hunger Showdown, a virtual food drive that will take place from Nov. 1 to the kickoff of the Kansas-Missouri football game.

Harvesters, a community food network in Kansas City, Mo., will be holding the event with the Kansas and Missouri alumni associations to donate food throughout the Kansas City area. Harvesters serves 26 counties in northeast Kansas and northwest Missouri and provides meals for more than 60,000 people every week.

Unlike most food drives, the Border Hunger Showdown takes place mostly online. Online, donators can choose between different sized grocery bags and cases of soup, cereal or peanut butter.

There will also be donation sites available in grocery stores where people can physically donate cans of food.

“It’s been a very successful campaign for us every year,” said Ellen Feldhausen, director of communications for Harvesters. “We are encouraging alumni from both schools to support their schools and help us feed the hungry.”

The first Border Hunger Showdown took place in 2007 when the two alumni associations approached Harvesters about doing a food drive.

In the beginning, however, the food drive was not primarily online. The two alumni associations placed collection bins around the stadium for people to bring in cans.

“People kept mistaking them for trash cans,” said Stefani Gerson, coordinator of student programs for the University of Kansas Alumni Association. “We ended up with all kinds of trash in the bins and no one really knew where to donate their cans.”

Last year, the food drive went completely virtual to make the donation process more efficient. In all, the two schools collected 141,705 meals. Missouri collected 76,487 meals and Kansas ended with 65,218 meals. Each dollar donated is the equivalent of five meals.

As of Sunday night, the University had collected 375 meals while Missouri had yet to collect any.

Feldhausen said soup kitchens, food pantries, homeless shelters and other agencies that helped people in need reported up to a 40 percent increase in the number of people needing assistance this year. She attributed the additional need to the recession.

“While we’re having fun with the competition and all that leads up to it, we hope they will also think of those in need,” she said. “The need for emergency food assistance has grown greatly.”

People can go to www.borderhungershowdown2009.harvesters.org to contribute, Gerson said. Then they can choose the school of their choice and donate the desired amount. They can also see how much each school has raised so far.

“You don’t have to be a student to donate,” said Brent Blazek, Lenexa senior and president of the Student Alumni Leadership Board. Blazek has been helping to promote the event. “We’re just using everyone’s dislike of Missouri for a good cause.”

Blazek said online option of the food drive was a good way for people who didn’t live near campus to help support their respective teams.

“Last year we started out really strong, but then lost it in the end to Missouri,” Blazek said. “This year we hope to get a fast start and keep it going up to the end.”

— Edited by Abbey Strusz