Brenau University Athletics has organized its second annual Fill the Bus canned food drive to benefit Good News at Noon in Gainesville. Students, faculty, staff and the community can get involved.

This year’s campaign began March 5 and will run until April 5. The Golden Tigers have partnered with Riverbend Elementary and Dairy Queen to increase donations in an effort to beat last year’s campaign of 1,000 cans.

Brenau Athletics brought the bus, along with student-athletes, coaches and the Golden Tiger mascot, to Riverbend Elementary on March 26 to pick up the cans the school donated.

To make the community service project a fun competition for the kids, an ice cream party and a pizza party were provided as prizes for the top two classrooms.

Sandy Rhodes’ second-grade class was the winning classroom with 142 cans collected. Tony McKinney’s fourth-grade class came in second place with 100 cans.

Overall, Riverbend Elementary collected a total of 820 cans.

The Golden Tigers will bring the bus to Dairy Queen on Green Street from 5-7 p.m. April 5. Customers who donate a can to the cause can earn discounts.

•

Jay Stephens, great-grandson of Gainesville resident Ruby Brauner, recently won the Zeta Tau Alpha Big Man on Campus philanthropy pageant benefitting breast cancer awareness. Stephens is junior political science major at Perdue University and won with an acoustic performance of Coldplay’s "Fix You."