The Aztecs Rock Hunger challenge collected a record amount of food donations this year. A closing ceremony was held at the Conrad Prebys Aztec Student Union on Nov. 18 to announce San Diego State collected 304,718 pounds of food, surpassing its goal of 250,000.

“It was really through collaboration,” Associated Students Vice President of Financial Affairs Alex Padua said. “The cool thing was the whole time everyone was onboard.”

In addition to collecting donations around campus, A.S. accepted donations through swipe card meal plans at Aztec Markets and online donations through a virtual “pantry.” A.S. also promoted the food drive by tabling and producing an Aztecs Rock Hunger commercial for the football games.

The challenge ended on Nov. 9, but an announcement of the total amount collected was held off until canned food donations could be counted.

“On the day the event ends we basically have the money we can calculate, so that’s like the online pantry donations, the money we collected with tabling, and all the sporting events,” kinesiology sophomore and Chief of Community Service Committees Progress on Aztecs Rock Hunger Delaney Cummings said. “But we don’t have the totals of the canned foods because that goes to the food bank and they weigh it there.”

CEO of San Diego Food Bank James Floros attended the closing ceremony to announce the final count.

For the first time, in an effort to include more SDSU students, the closing ceremony was moved from its usual location at the San Diego Hard Rock Hotel to the student union.

“They wanted to move it to our campus to have the student body have more accessibility to the event,” Cummings said.

President Elliot Hirshman, Floros and Padua spoke at the event.