Feeding San Diego collaborates with the Comic-Con museum to launch a hunger action hero art contest for K-12 students

SAN DIEGO – Feeding San Diego, the county’s leading hunger-relief and food rescue organization, has announced a Hunger Action Hero Art Challenge in collaboration with the Comic-Con Museum to rally local students around its mission to end hunger through food rescue.

Students are tasked with designing their own hero character who helps end hunger through food rescue, the act of recovering surplus or imperfect food from food donors and getting it to people in need. The winning submission, which will be voted on by the community, will have its hero brought to life and put on display at the Comic-Con Museum during Comic-Con 2022 this July. The contest is open to K-12 students across San Diego County.

“We are thrilled to be able to collaborate with the Comic-Con Museum to raise awareness about our mission and give local students a chance to express themselves creatively,” said Dan Shea, CEO of Feeding San Diego. “Comic-Con is an iconic San Diego event and inspires so much creativity throughout the city every year. Our hope is to inspire a new generation of advocates for hunger relief and food rescue to help both people and the planet.”

Feeding San Diego’s work is heavily rooted in food rescue (or recovery), with 70% of the food it distributes to people in need of food assistance coming from food donors like local grocery stores, food distributors and manufacturers, and farms. This food is used to feed the hundreds of thousands of people facing hunger throughout San Diego County. Together with the Comic-Con Museum, Feeding San Diego seeks to involve local students in learning more about hunger relief while expressing their creativity. The idea behind the contest is to show the community students’ perspectives on what traits make a hunger action hero, and why the world needs more of them.

The contest will allow the community to vote on the top 10 entries as chosen by a panel of judges, which includes members of Feeding San Diego’s team, the Comic-Con Museum team, San Diego Magazine publisher and chief content officer Troy Johnson, comic artist Rodney Anderson Jr., San Diego Comic-Con International & WonderCon masquerade coordinator Martin Jaquish, and cosplay creator Allan Lavigne. The deadline to submit is Friday, April 22.

The top 10 submissions will receive art supplies and tickets to the Comic-Con Museum, while the top three submissions will also receive a trip to the Comic-Con Museum’s Makers Lab for their class. The winning submission will have their character brought to life by Allan Lavigne, studio head of The Bronze Armory Studios and a longtime costume and prop designer who has worked on legendary comic book films from the "Iron Man" and "Captain America" franchises, and showcased at the Comic-Con Museum during Comic-Con in July.

The winner and three guests will also receive badges to attend San Diego Comic-Con in July and be included on a Comic-Con Museum panel. The top 10 entries will be announced on National Superhero Day (Thursday, April 28), which is when community voting will start. The winner will be announced on Friday, May 13.

“The Comic-Con Museum is delighted to work with Feeding San Diego in support of their mission to end hunger through food rescue and to inspire young artists to use the power of the popular arts to make a positive impact in our community,” said David Glanzer, chief communications and strategy officer of San Diego Comic Convention.

In addition to their artwork, students are also asked to submit a brief paragraph that explains their hero’s origin story about how they gained their powers and decided to fight injustice. To learn more, see full eligibility requirements, and to enter, visit feedingsandiego.org/hunger-action-hero-art-contest.