You can put a lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.

But no lipstick was necessary when Niles High School Principal Jim Knoll puckered up Friday morning in the gym to the delight of nearly 1,000 students.

Students Against Destructive Decisions members organized a Fight Against Hunger drive for The Salvation Army, and the food drive was a dual effort coordinated with Buchanan High School.

Their goal was to rally the student body to collect at least 1,000 items in two weeks. Niles High School beat that goal with 1,630 items, including food, personal hygiene and baby items, as well as $285 cash.

Incentives included getting the opportunity to watch their principal kiss a pig as well as throw pies in teachers’ faces and become “superintendent for a day.”

“If this is all it takes to get you excited…” Knoll said to the students Friday after he smooched Lucy the pig, “I’ll do it every week.”

The collection drive came from the depletion of resources often felt by food pantries following the large-scale need around the holidays.

“We do the Christmas ones and after talking to so many people around … a lot of the food banks are so empty right now because everyone gives at Christmastime and everyone is in the giving mode at Christmas,” SADD adviser Karissa Young said in February. “The food banks are just empty right now.”

SADD would like to make the Fight Against Hunger drive an annual event.