Inside Cadence: Food for Charity & Freedom

Earlier today at the Cadence San Jose campus, a charity event was held off-cycle from the regular "Stars & Strikes" charity event series, where this time the focus was on food with a hot dog eating contest to benefit for Second Harvest Food Bank’s "Share Your Lunch Drive".

For more images from the event, click here for an annotated gallery

This event might seem like it's coming out of the blue, but hot dog eating contests are actually a 4th of July holiday tradition.  The first such contest was held on July 4, 1916 in Coney Island, New York by Nathan's Famous hotdogs; and this particular contest continues to this day.

Our Cadence contestants didn't threaten the world record of 66 hot dogs eaten in one sitting (OMG!) set in 2007 by Joey "Jaws" Chestnut, since the goal of the contest was speed -- how many hotdogs you can eat in 5 min -- versus quantity. Despite some chicanery by a tricky Viking, our winner managed to down 9 hot dogs and remain vertical. Even better, $525 was raised for a good cause.  Many thank yous are due to the ticket buyers, the hearty contestants, as well as the donation of time & materials from our catering provider Guckenheimer.

The winner!

Indeed there is a *delicious* irony here: a benefit to fight hunger that's based on competitive gluttony.  (Sorry, some puns are impossible to resist.)  I also can't resist tying this event to 4th of July itself: whenever "hunger" appears as an issue, I always recall the famous Norman Rockwell "Freedom From Want" illustration of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner that was inspired by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" speech.

In real sense, this charity event was small step toward providing this particular freedom in advance of a day that's primarily about celebrating freedom in all its forms.

Happy 4th of July!

Joe Hupcey III

Reference links:
Second Harvest Food Bank
http://www.2ndharvest.net/