Anyone ever done the Packers food drive?

[OldSchoolSnapper]

http://www.nickcollinsfoundation.com/blog/2011/10/join-nick-collins-at-the-new-berlin-2011-thanksgiving-food-drive/

 

 

I was just wondering how this works in regards to what you can get signed. Can you bring in your stuff to get signed or is just a stack of crappy photos they have ready to give out?

[bani1717]

A large majority of the team did a major signing for charity in Brookfield in June (and I think the Nick Collins Foundation was one of three Packer players' organizations sponsoring it). That signing was advertised as one item signed by every single player. So this signing may be similar - you bring your own item, and that one item gets signed by every single guy there.

[PrinceEatMeat]

I'll probably go to this and just bring a Super Bowl XLV related item to get signed. Seems like the way to go.

[Brew City Baseball Fan]

It looked to me that the players will be signing in shifts and you wont know whos graph you get until you are in the front of the line?

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Correct. I just wanted to know if I could bring something in, or if I just get handed some lame photo.

[Brew City Baseball Fan]

Decided to make the trip from Appleton tomorrow hopefully I am rewarded

[jnatro]

I went to this and was in line at 2:30 and was probably about 100-125 people back. At 3:10 they announced the players were about 35 minutes away. Apparently somebody forgot to order food for them on the bus so they stopped on the way, causing them to be late. I left because I had to be somewhere else. They finally arrived at 4 PM. I'm glad I donated the food but unfortunate of the late arrival.

[bobble brian]

I went to this yesterday right after work. What a difference from last year!

 

I was in the food drop-off line at 3:50 PM. By 4:15 PM I was standing in the back of the autograph line. I did not exit the autograph line until a little before 7:00 PM. It seemed like there was approximately 1 hours worth of people in line behind me too. You waited in line outside until you got to the tent, where the players were seated (and where the temperature was at least 30 degrees warmer). I do believe that I would not have waited as long in line if the players had showed up at 3:00 PM, though.

 

The players that were in the tent included Nick Collins, Tramon Williams, Sam Shields, Charlie Peprah, Ryan Grant, Anthony Levine, and Morgan Burnett. I was told that Jordy Nelson, Josh Sitton, and Vic So'oto were there earlier. I cannot confirm that though, just relaying what I heard. Only Nick Collins smiled and shook hands. All the rest of the players seemed irritated, annoyed, and downright hostile. No smiles, just glares and stares. I did not feel welcome or appreciated at all.

 

In addition, some of the organizers (once you reached the inside of the tent) were ehhh ... "difficult" to say the least. I, at various points, felt like I was being herded like cattle, treated like a prisoner at a prison camp uprising, or taking part in the Bataan death march. Difficult, bad attitudes, yelling at you, hostile, etc. There were also lots of volunteers standing around that didn't seem to be doing anything other than inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide.

 

I "get it" ... it is late, it is cold, players are tired, people are tired, Packers are popular, autographs are free, etc. It just didn't feel right, though. The food bank is relying on people to bring money or food donations and fill up their trucks (a good thing). This is something I have done long before I could get Packer autographs in exchange for it. To boost donations, they enlist the help of the Packers. Packers = more attention=more people = more donations. Once again a good thing. However, I got the feeling that the switch was "flipped" the second I dropped off my non-expired food and had to go in line for the autographs. Like they no longer had a need for me, so therefore they could stop being cordial. Not cool at all.

 

I would be very surprised if they kept this event format exactly the same next year. Seems like they couldn't handle the amount of people that showed up this year in a timely manner. Maybe an idea for next year would be to have multiple tents with one or two players in each tent. Who knows.

 

It was so different than last year though, when it wasn't publicized as well and the crowds weren't as large.

 

 

 

[OldSchoolSnapper]

I was there as well and echo the comment above. Only Collins expressed any gratitude. The rest were jerks, which surprised me, because Grant is usually very friendly.

[TURBO]

Did the players that showed up volunteer for this duty, or were they forced to go?

[Bikeage77]

i'm pretty sure they volunteer. from my understanding, it's primarily nick collins charity. he got players to join him. you have to wonder if a multiple fans were asking for inscriptions, photos, etc early on that set a lot of players into bad moods as the afternoon went on.