EDWARDSVILLE - There are a lot of high school football scrimmages around the Friday night before the season kicks off, but none are likely as special as the one that Edwardsville High School puts on each year.
The event, appropriately called “The 12th Man Scrimmage,” will take place Friday night at the high school field. Each year, Edwardsville uses the event as a community service project to benefit the Glen-Ed Food Pantry. Edwardsville opens its season on Friday, Aug. 26, at Quincy.
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The varsity will scrimmage at 7:30 p.m. Friday, preceded by Tiger Junior Football, middle school football, freshman football and the junior varsity.
“We are asking that everyone in attendance bring non-perishable (non-expired) food items and or make an individual donation of $2 per person or $5 per family,” Edwardsville High School athletic director Brad Bevis said. “This is our ninth year of doing it. Over the past several years, the football programs have been able to donate thousands of dollars and thousands of pounds of food to the pantry. We will have food collection boxes and cash collectors at the entrance.”
Bevis said several years ago, Edwardsville High School was looking to do a service type of project with the football program and this idea came about.
“We decided to turn the scrimmage into something to benefit the community at large,” Bevis said. “The scrimmage always draws a pretty good crowd. Many use this game to bring in soap or shampoo for the players to use cleaning up after games during the season.
“We thought, why couldn’t we do the same thing with a food drive and have each person bring a can or two of vegetables? We have some people bring a case of stuff to give to the pantry. We also collect money because the pantry provides families perishable items. The money raised buys meat and poultry to give away to the families.”
Bevis continued: “We want to make sure they understand they are party of a larger community and not everyone else in the community is doing well and needs assistance,” he said.
Once the food and money are collected, the football players make a presentation led by captains to the food pantry, which is always a moving experience, Bevis said.
“We involve our Little Tigers Football to our middle school and high school programs,” Bevis said. “This is something we do for the football program all the way through our ranks.”
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