The Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity will host a canned-food drive to benefit a local food bank this week.

Members said they hope to collect 50,000 pounds of canned food for the Capital Area Food Bank by placing collection boxes throughout campus this week. The drive is the fraternity’s major philanthropic event of the school year.

If the fraternity reaches its goal, it will raise enough canned goods to feed as many as 2,000 people for six months, said Christian Berle, chair of the Capital Area Food Drive, District-based organization that collects food for charities. Berle is a member of Lamda Chi Alpha.

The food drive is an international fraternity event called the North American Food Drive, where about 200 chapters throughout the United States and Canada each try to raise as much food as they can for a local food bank, Berle said.

The GW chapter raised 10,000 pounds of food last year and donated it to the Healthy Babies Project, a smaller food bank.

The fraternity will host events to motivate students to donate food next week. A Kick-Off barbecue catered by Outback Steakhouse will take place Monday afternoon in Kogan Plaza, followed by Monday Night Football in the Hippodrome.

Lambda Chi Alpha will host a catered luncheon and weigh-in celebration in Kogan Plaza Oct. 7.

Berle said the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity raised more than 2 million pounds of non-perishable canned food nationally last year.

This was the largest collection of food by a frat ever, and, this year, the fraternity’s goal is 2.5 million (pounds) and each chapter is trying to raise a portion of that, Berle said. We feel like it is our duty to be involved philanthropically. We are in a fortunate situation that we are able to give back to the community.

-Michelle Millberg