HASTINGS, Neb. – This week started with a man on a four-story building rooftop plus an empty moving truck, and ended with thousands of food donations filling that truck to help feed people facing food insecurities.

"This ranks number one, in the fact of doing the biggest promotion we've ever done," said KHAS Radio General Manager Sherry Foster, who's been with the station for 25 years.

All promotion talk aside, KHAS Radio in Hastings’s inaugural ‘Heroes for Hunger’ food drive took an unconventional approach to field food donations.

On Tuesday, morning show host Brandon J McDermott, set up a tent on top of the Burlington Center and couldn’t leave until the truck was packed with food.

McDermott said he came up with this unique idea, due to multiple personal experiences.

"I was homeless as a kid in Omaha, I went to 11 schools in 13 years growing up," said McDermott. "I know what it's like to be poor, I know what it's like to not know where your next food is going to come from, I know what it's like to kind of feel helpless."

Surely enough with the help of the Hastings community, the 18-foot long truck completely filled up with food on Thursday afternoon, releasing McDermott from the rooftop after 53 hours and 29 minutes.

"The message was just a lot of gratitude that we were stepping up to do this, and the community really came together to give," said Foster. "We could not have done it without the volunteers and the community."

After getting off the roof, McDermott thanked everyone who gave food no, matter how much they gave.

"The bag (of pasta) right here feeds 16 people. Multiply that out by 30 boxes, and multiply that by five, and you've got a bunch of people that are going to be fed by this," said McDermott. "That's the realness of it, looking at these individual boxes, these individual pieces, this is going to be a meal to somebody."

The truckload of donations were given to five Hastings area food pantries (Crossroads Mission Avenue, Hastings Food Pantry, Hastings Catholic Social Services, United Harvest, and the Hastings Salvation Army, who all expressed their gratitude for the radio station’s and the public’s generosity.

"Especially as we get into the holiday season we start to see more of a need, cold weather season with utilities going up, you're definitely going to see a need in people facing food insecurities," said Crossroads Mission Avenue Executive Director Daniel Buller. "Every time is a good time, this was a perfect time."

While it may be the biggest promotion to help out the community for the radio station to date, plans are being formed to make it bigger and better next year.