How OU football player Ethan Downs got involved with organizing a campus food drive
NORMAN ― Ethan Downs went to an OU basketball game earlier this year and found himself pitching his idea for a food and clothing drive to a campus leader.
The setting wasn’t ideal.
The OU defensive lineman remembers music blaring and buzzers sounding as he tried to explain his vision.
“Do you like this idea?” he said. “Can you help me out?”
The response: “What?”
Downs didn’t let a little noise get in the way then.
Frankly, he didn’t let anything get in the way.
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In only a few months, Downs’ created, spearheaded and executed the GIVE Mission (short for Greatness in Various Efforts). Sooner athletic teams as well as fraternities and sororities at OU engaged in a friendly competition to see who could donate the most food, clothing, toiletries and money to the OU Food Pantry.
The results will be announced Saturday during OU’s spring game, but Downs already knows it was a success. Three tons of food were donated in addition to a ton and a half of clothes.
That the donations were measured in tons makes Downs marvel.
“It was really cool,” he said of seeing items arrive at the food pantry.
“They’re coming in by the trucks and the cars and the vans, and all the clothes and boxes full of toothbrushes, toothpaste, toilet paper, paper towels and jackets and baby clothes. It was shoes. It was giant crates of ramen noodles, boxes of green beans, corn. It kept going.”
He chuckled.
“It filled my heart,” he said.
Talk to anyone who knows Downs, and they’ll say they aren’t surprised he would create something like the GIVE Mission. Still, it isn’t every day you see a college athlete, especially one on a high-profile team, involved in something so time intensive.
During the time after the season when many football players are resting and readying for spring practice, Downs threw himself into a huge endeavor.
For Downs, this was an idea that’s been percolating for quite some time.
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It goes back to his high school days in Weatherford. He remembers fundraising events and food drives that pitted Weatherford against some of its rival schools in Western Oklahoma. The competition was always fun, the beneficiary worthy.
Then Brent Venables arrived at OU a little over a year ago and launched SOUL Mission. The in-house development program is designed to help football players become successful beyond the field, and part of that is plugging into the community, giving back and helping others.
Downs felt like the stars were aligning for him to do something.
When he learned there was an on-campus food pantry that serves hundreds of students, faculty and staff members every week and relies solely on donations, he knew he’d found a beneficiary.
Downs’ plan was to ask athletic teams, fraternities and sororities to collect different things for the food pantry. Clothes. Toiletries. Food. Money. Each would be the focus of different groups that would be in friendly competition with each other.
But before he could start the drive, he had to get approval and buy-in.
He started in early January with the compliance office in the athletic department, then went from there. He sold his idea to Venables, athletic director Joe Castiglione, dean of students David Surratt and many others.
Downs also talked to other athletes as well as fraternity and sorority leaders to get their buy-in.
In a matter of weeks, the GIVE Mission was ready for launch.
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“I’m blessed to see how all these things came together, how fortunate I am to be in a position where I feel like I have a voice and the ability to speak up and connect people,” Downs said. “I just saw this huge web across campus spread.”
Downs admits everything wasn’t perfect.
“We didn’t get as many athletic teams that contributed as we liked,” he said.
He knows many of the teams were in season, including both the winter and the spring sports, and with the GIVE Mission being a new event, he understands it will take time to get traction and build momentum.
Still, Downs is proud of how much the event was able to do for the OU Food Pantry.
“It was just great to see community and this collective goal to donate and serve each other,” he said.
And he’s already looking forward to what comes next. Yes, it will be fun to announce the winners at the spring game; each will receive a trophy that’s three feet tall. But Downs intends for them to be traveling trophies.
That’s because he plans to do the GIVE Mission again.
“Hopefully,” he said, “it just gets bigger and bigger.”
Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at 405-475-4125 or jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok, and support her work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
The OU Food Pantry
The OU Food Pantry provides food, clothing, toiletries and other items to any students, faculty or staff member in need at OU. It is a student-run facility that receives no university funding, so it relies on donations.
To make a donation, go to www.ou.edu/foodpantry/make-a-donation.
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This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OU football: Ethan Downs oversees on-campus food, clothing drive
