Organizers of the sixth annual Thanksgiving in July food drive are hoping wet weather Saturday did not slow donations.

The food drive for the Crisis Center Food Bank ended Saturday following a week of promotion and donations at area businesses. Organizers are hoping for 20 tons of food, which would break last year's record of 18 tons.

"This year, we have a higher demand," said Dayna Ballantyne, Food Bank director. "We're serving approximately 550 families every week, so we're hoping for a little bit more."

Crisis Center volunteer coordinator Patti Fields said the festival and food drive was to help promote the center's needs during the summer, when people's attention is focused elsewhere.

"School is out and school lunches are not being served," Fields said. "Families are more often feeding three meals at home, so the needs goes up."

Rain that began after noon Saturday washed out some of the events at the group's celebration at Lower City Park, including live music and a car show. A dunk tank featuring local officials such as Crisis Center executive director and Iowa City Councilor Ross Wilburn went on, however.

The Thanksgiving in July drive began in 1999 after a challenge to area businesses and groups from Mercy Hospital executive chef Ron Hall. He said the drive began slowly, but has moved on to larger portions this year.

"I expected these great results right away," Hall said, "and I have visions of everybody in the community holding all kinds of fund-raisers and food drives. It'd take quite a bit to get it going, to grow it. It is growing."

Food was coming in steadily to a truck parked in the park, with larger groups such as Mercy Hospital and the city of Iowa City donating 3,100 pounds and 500 pounds of food, respectively, according to volunteer Jeff Knox.

"It's great," Knox said of the collection. "It's quite a nice activity, too, because this is very much needed here in town. We have many more clients now that have (need) for food here in Iowa City."

Younger people got into the act as well. Trevor Anderson, 17, will be a senior at City High this fall. He helped load boxes of donated food into the truck. He said he thought the service would help his chances for going to college, but also just wanted to help.

"I also serve down at the Salvation Army dinners," Anderson said. "I kind of thought that since they often need a lot of food, and this would be a good thing to come help out and load the truck."

Cheryl Richmond of Iowa City delivered the 45 pounds of food purchased by Girl Scout Troop 2531, which is based at Weber Elementary. She said the girls she leads decided to donate food after volunteering at the Crisis Center earlier in the year. They designed birthday party kits, complete with cake mixes, plates, napkins and a gift bag, all bought with money from Girl Scout cookie sales.

"We sell a lot of cookies," Richmond said. "The girls get to decide what they want to do with the money. We've visited (the Crisis Center) and volunteered there a couple of years. It's an organization we've kind of adopted over the years."