Ga. attorney general announces food drive

ATLANTA (AP) -- Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens on Tuesday announced a food drive competition among state lawmakers.

Olens was joined by State Bar president Robin Frazer Clark to introduce the second annual "Legal Food Frenzy" at the Capitol. Goods collected in the food drive will benefit the state's seven regional food banks. The competition kicks off April 22 and runs through May 3.

"Our state has one very bad statistic," Olens said. "About 60 percent of schoolchildren are eligible for free and reduced(-priced) lunch."

He urged the state's lawyers to come together for a friendly competition to help their less fortunate neighbors.

Atlanta attorney Adrienne Hobbs collected more than 25,000 pounds of food last year, the most per capita statewide, to win the grand prize. Other awards are given for sole proprietor, small, medium and large firms, as well as legal organizations. Georgia's five law schools compete in their own separate competition

Olens held Hobbs up as an example at Tuesday's news conference, saying there were whole cities that didn't raise as much food as she did even though she works alone.

"I don't want to hear about the size of your firm," the attorney general joked as he challenged others to follow Hobbs' lead.

More than 200 law firms in more than 50 cities raised the equivalent of 612,496 pounds of food in last year's inaugural legal food drive. This year's goal is to raise more than 750,000 pounds, Olens said.

All food collected in each region will remain in the community where it's collected, with donations going directly to a food bank in that region. The Georgia Food Bank Association is made up of seven regional food banks, which distributed more than 90 million pounds of food to the state's 159 counties last year.