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In the past week, several UNMC gnomes have fallen into the large blue food drive bins.
While performing tasks such as getting dust bunnies out of light fixtures and replacing fire alarm batteries, several gnomes have tumbled into the blue buckets.
“Gnomes falling into the buckets actually is common during the annual food drive but fortunately in years past there has been plenty of food in the buckets, which allowed the gnomes to climb out,” said John Hauser, campus safety manager. “To this point this year, most of the buckets are pretty empty, which means many gnomes are getting stuck.”
As of Friday, only about 200 pounds of food have been collected during the drive, which ends Sunday. The medical center has set a goal of collecting six tons — or about 12,000 pounds of food — during the drive.
Hauser urged employees to bring food to fill the buckets in order to protect the gnomes and help the medical center meet its goal.
Gnomes have fallen into the empty buckets at the following locations:
- The Durham Research Center;
- The Munroe-Meyer Institute (just inside the yellow canopy);
- The Student Life Center (south entrance);
- College of Nursing commons area;
- Wittson Hall entrance;
- 4230 Building, north entrance; and
- Sorrell Center commons area.
“In one instance, a pair of gnomes fell into the same bucket and were trying to help each other get out but it was no use, the bucket was really too deep,” Hauser said. “If they had some soup cans and Hamburger Helper boxes to climb on, they could have been out in no time.”