There’s no doubt North Forsyth and West Forsyth high are rivals on the gridiron.

But during this week’s match-up between the schools, another competition will go on between students in the school’s marketing clubs.

Members of DECA are collecting non-perishable food items for local residents in need this week and at the 7:30 p.m. game Friday at West.

Students at North Forsyth are also collecting dog and cat food for the Forsyth County Humane Society, through a larger community service project called Feed Forsyth.

Kathy Kemp, the DECA club sponsor at North, said the project is a continuation of a year-long community service project several club members worked on last year.

“We collected food and kitty litter throughout the year last year for the Humane Society,” she said.

Caitlin Ramspec, a sophomore, worked on the Humane Society project last year.

“We wanted to expand it this year,” she said. “We wanted to also collect food for horses at a local horse rescue facility.”

Ramspec even designed a special logo for the Feed Forsyth project, which features all Forsyth residents, including people and pets.

Fellow DECA member Jessie Reed, a junior, said the project was expanded to include people because of needs at the school.

“We heard about kids right here at our school who don’t have enough food, so we combined all the projects into Feed Forsyth,” she said.

Kemp said that North Forsyth school leaders set up a food pantry for students in need this year, so the DECA project was a perfect extension of that program.

“We have kids who go by the food pantry every Friday afternoon and get food for the weekend,” she said.

North students later decided to pull their counterparts at West into the food drive, said West’s DECA teacher Gwen Belue.

“North was looking for someone else to participate, and our club is always looking for community service projects, so we were excited to participate,” she said.

West senior Liz Earls said West students have collected quite a bit of food.

“We got it on our morning announcements and at our school store, if people bring in at least five cans they get a free cookie or slushy,” Earls said.

The public is invited to support either school of their choice in the drive.

Both Kemp and Belue said people can drop off donations any time this week at either school’s front office.

“We’ll also set up probably by 6:30 Friday night so people can come in early and drop donations off,” Belue said.

North students will continue to collect food throughout the school year.

“This is our year-long DECA project, so it will continue even after the competition with West,” Reed said.