Hokies volunteer at food pantry ahead of Thursday's Belk Bowl

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WSLS 10) - The countdown to the Belk Bowl in Charlotte, NC now stands at two days. Tuesday morning members of the Virginia Tech Hokies took some time away from the field to give back. A football team working as a unit can move mountains. The Hokies as well as members of the Arkansas Razorbacks combined to help feed 2600 Charlotte area children over this holiday weekend.

"I think it's very important, also cool that we get to come and help out." says Hokies wide receiver Cam Phillips. "And you know it and just see all the food that they get to send out to all the kids that may not get that even though they're away from school for so long and missing meals you know. I'm blessed to be here and I'm glad we're doing this."

In assembly line fashion the Hokie's quickly learned the Harvest Food Bank playbook. Fill the red backpacks with food for area children to take home and they executed the game plan to near perfection

"This is definitely team first or working together we're knocking this out we're making a bunch of bags. It's fantastic." Charlie Wiles, Virginia Tech Defensive Line Coach said. "I do like the tempo it's not too fast it's very smooth it's very efficient I like it."

"I think these guys are awesome." says Mike Oberle of the Harvest Food Bank.

Mike Oberle of the Harvest Food Bank thinks these guys are awesome. "You know when we've got four groups of 20 cranking out backpacks down this line and each line gets really competitive with each other so they've turned several hours work into about half an hour today." said Oberle.

The Belk Bowl has worked with the Harvest Food Bank for three years now. It's not just think week. The Food Bank delivered 50-million pounds of food last year.