College World Series Jello Shot Challenge leads to donation of $142,464 to food banks across the country
The College World Series Jello Shot Challenge wrapped up in a historic way this past June with around 95,000 jello shots sold. The philanthropic payout from the event is now beginning in earnest too. Rocco’s Pizza & Cantina, the home of the Jello Shot Challenge, announced Tuesday that $142,464 in total has been sent off and donated to food banks at all eight schools that had teams in the College World Series and Omaha’s Food Bank for the Heartland.
The payout for each food bank is based on how many jello shots each school racked up over the two weeks in Omaha.
LSU was far and away the winner of the challenge as 68,888 jello shots were purchased by Tigers fans. That has resulted in a $68,888 check to the university’s food bank.
The Food Bank for the Heartland received the second biggest donation at $47,488.
Wake Forest earned its food bank $7,622 donation thanks to its fan in Omaha while TCU also saw a donation over $7k at $7,010. Florida fans earned a $4,136 donation for its food bank, Oral Roberts with a $3,323 mark and Tennessee raised $2,207 for its school with this round of donation. Virginia‘s pantry will get a $872 donation and Stanford‘s food bank received a $912 donation.
LSU rolled to overall jello shot crown, both this year and all-time, in part thanks to Raising Cane’s founder Todd Graves — who is from Baton Rouge, went to school at LSU and opened his first Raising Cane’s restaurant in Baton Rouge. Graves bought 6,000 shots one day at Rocco’s one day, which also set the world record for most shots bought in a single round.
“Records were meant to be broken,” Graves said via Twitter. “6,000 Jello Shots for @LSUBaseball fans @Roccos_Omaha to set the new record! Fun fact: This also breaks the round of shots world record Merle Haggard set in 1983 when he bought 5,095 shots for the entire bar @billybobstexas ! #Geauxmaha“
The two weeks in Omaha were a time to remember for the LSU faithful far beyond the amount of jello shots its fans consumed. The Tigers won the Men’s College World Series title on the baseball field behind an outstanding tournament run.
Star right-handed Paul Skenes, who went on to be drafted No. 1 overall in the 2023 MLB Draft a few weeks by the Pittsburgh Pirates, won the Most Outstanding Player award of the tournament.