Emily Anne Espinosa | Staff Writer |
CSUSB won $2,500 as a first place prize from The National Peanut Board’s Snack Attack Competition, which will go toward The Den food pantry.The Office of Community Engagement (OCE) at CSUSB competed with 24 other universities with campus food pantries in The National Peanut Board’s Snack Attack competition, where positive messages about peanuts as a healthy snack were to be promoted through social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram.
CSUSB beat out larger universities such as Pennsylvania State University, Diane Podolske, director of OCE, sent an email to campus expressing how she wasn’t expecting to win stating, “our campus food pantry isn’t even a year old,” and how she “privately hoped we would get enough participation to land in the middle of the list – just enough not to be embarrassing.”
“I was wrong. So wrong,” continued Podolske.
For each participating school, The National Peanut Board provided a Snack Attack media package to promote on social media.
In addition, the OCE staff and students came up with more marketing strategies, handing out peanut granola bars’ , tabling at events, providing fun props and costumes to promote photos to post on Instagram and Twitter, as well as creating two YouTube videos.
“We did a lot of things first. So I think what happened with us is that as our ideas really got out there, we saw the other campuses start to emulate our ideas,” said Bryant Fairley, associate director of the OCE. “What we did and what our students did says a lot about our campus, our staff, and we were able to even get other universities to support our effort. So I think that was completely unique in comparison to what other campuses did.”
“We really reached out to our friends and family, and that family really responded back,” Fairley continued.
The OCE and The DEN gained large amounts of support from CSUSB as a whole.
Student organizations, and departments took part in this movement.
“It really is truly a big campus win, it wasn’t just our office or The DEN. Because it was everyone from our staff, to our students, our clubs, our greeks, everyone was involved,” said Marissa Setyawan, community partnership coordinator of OCE.
The OCE specifically wanted to thank ASI for our school’s success in the competition. One condition in the Snack Attack Competition is that you had to host an event between Oct. 26 and Nov. 6, with only a week notice. In response, OCE reached out to ASI to partner up for an already occurring event.
As a result, a Snack Attack photo booth was held during CSUSB Horror Nights, which greatly contributed to CSUSB’s success in the social media competition.
“We’re a small campus, but we are mighty. Our community gathered together and we definitely fought for first place. There wasn’t one day where we stopped promoting,” said Reacheal Sis-Medina, student assistant at OCE.
The National Peanut Board represents all U.S. peanut farmers and their families, and focuses on enhancing production and increasing consumer demand.
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