Mankato East junior Amanda Blain doesn’t necessarily consider herself a groundbreaker, but if you ask Tim Stromer he’d say she fits that bill.

Stromer is the director of the local chapter of Kids Against Hunger. Blain is a co-captain for the Mankato East girls cross country team.

Their paths crossed recently when Blain was looking for a fundraiser for the Cougars’ cross country team. In the past, East had usually held a car wash to raise funds for the program, and the overwhelming majority of the money came from parents donations.

“We wanted to try something different,” Blain said. “I had done the Kids Against Hunger thing before, and I thought, why not combine the two?”

She spoke with Stromer and he thought it was a great idea, so Blain and her cross country teammates got together and hatched a plan. They would go door-to-door asking for donations and two-thirds of the money would go toward Kids Against Hunger with the other third going to the cross country team.

“It was a little weird at first, just asking people for money” said team member Bethany Murray. “We went out in pairs, and one of us had the Kids Against Hunger apron on and the other one did the talking. Once people found out what we were doing, they were very generous.”

Stromer believes it is the first time a group has opted to use KAH as a way to raise money for its own program, and he’s all for it.

“Amanda had done this before; it was obviously something dear to her heart,” Stromer said. “She wanted to help feed starving kids, and she also wanted to help the cross country program, and she figured out a way to do both.”

It turns out the Cougars raised a total of $1,800 with $600 going toward the cross country program.

“That’s more than we’ve ever made at a car wash,” Blain said. “I don’t think we’ve ever raised more than $200 at a car wash before.”

The kicker, of course, was that after the money was raised, the Cougars went to Kids Against Hunger to package food. That way each of them could experience being directly involved in trying to stop world hunger.

“It was the whole varsity and JV teams,” Murray said. “We were there for about an hour and a half after practice, and I think we packaged more than 1,000 meals. Something like that gives you a great feeling of satisfaction.”

Blain, who is expected to return to the program next year as a senior, said the team will definitely consider doing it again.

“Oh, we’ll definitely think about it,” she said. “I think it went over very well.”