Bloomfield wins third consecutive ECHO annual food drive challenge, Mr. Potato Head trophy

• The City of Bloomfield won the annual ECHO — Economic Council Helping Others Inc. — Food Drive Challenge for the third consecutive year by collecting 1,753 pounds of food for the food bank.
• The challenge in the last 12 years had collected 184,244 pounds of food or more than 92 tons of food, according to the news release.
• ECHO is still collecting frozen turkeys for its holiday meal boxes.

FARMINGTON — The local food bank is filled with more than 11,000 pounds of food donations after local municipalities competed to collect the most food per employee as they competed for the coveted Mr. Potato Head trophy.

The City of Bloomfield won the annual ECHO — Economic Council Helping Others Inc. — Food Drive Challenge for the third year by collecting 1,753 pounds of food for the food bank, or 25.41 pounds per employee, according to a San Juan County news release.

The cities of Aztec, Bloomfield, and Farmington along with the San Juan County government collected a total of 11,436 pounds of food.

The challenge in the last 12 years had collected 184,244 pounds of food, or more than 92 tons of food, according to the news release.

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Food Bank Manager Catherine Knowlton told The Daily Times the county food drive challenge is especially important to ECHO, and it helps kick off efforts to collect food for the holiday season.

She also said she thinks the challenge is a lot of fun for the municipal employees.

To keep the event as fair as possible, the pounds per employee is the deciding factor as each municipality has a varying range of employees.

San Juan County collected the most food with 5,642 pounds but had a 10.13 pounds per employee rate.

Farmington collected 3,300 pounds or 4.65 pounds of food per employee. It was Aztec that collected 942 pounds of food, or 10.47 pounds, per employee.

The nonprofit recently held its annual Stuff the Bus food drive at the Farmington Albertsons grocery store on Nov. 20.

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There were 2,620 pounds of dry goods collected including canned fruit and vegetables, Knowlton said. The event also brought in 365 pounds of frozen turkeys and $446 in donations.

ECHO is still collecting frozen turkeys for its holiday meal boxes.

Those turkeys can be dropped it off at the ECHO location at 401 S. Commercial Ave. in Farmington. It is open from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays.

Joshua Kellogg covers breaking news for The Daily Times. He can be reached at 505-564-4627 or via email at jkellogg@daily-times.com.

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