The holiday season is filled with many traditions like kissing under the mistletoe, and this past Sunday, senior Quinn Graves turned this activity into a fundraiser, and a chance to break a world record.

On Dec. 3, the Jingle Bell Mistletoe nonprofit, run by Graves and his friends, raised money for the North Texas Food Bank through a holiday activity, Kissing Under Mistletoe, at Klyde Warren Park.

“I’ve been doing this for 10 years, but we raise money for the food bank conceptually by selling mistletoe,” Graves said.

In 2012 after Hurricane Sandy, Graves’ friend started the nonprofit, originally donating to the Red Cross. The following year, Graves joined and started selling mistletoe. He says he fell in love with the project, which spread awareness for those affected by the hurricane.

“I loved it, and then got really invested in it,” Graves said.

He joined Jingle Bell Mistletoe in 2013 and has co-led it since.

“We generally sell mistletoe, [but] also try to raise awareness in general,” Graves said.

The goal of their most recent fundraising event was to break the Guinness World Record for

“Most People Kissing Under Mistletoe.”

However, they did not succeed.

“[The record] was set at 480 couples, we got 279,” Graves said.

Despite not breaking the record, the event raised $87,000. The fundraising broke their ten-year goal of raising $500,000 in total, an equivalent of 1.5 million meals for NTFB.

“It was awesome, everyone was having fun,” Graves said. “We had music playing, and we could not have asked for better weather.”

Looking forward, Graves is not sure about the direction of the nonprofit.

“This was kind of our last hurrah. We’re seniors, we’re all going away to college,” Graves said.

During his time with the organization, Graves was able to reach his own goal of inspiring others to do service. Graves says he believes he has left his mark on the community and the Jingle Bell Mistletoe event.