The screening begins at 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 3, in Olin Arts Concert Hall, 75 Russell St. The film is 90 minutes long.

Hirshberg appears in the film, which scrutinizes the food we eat and how it is produced. He’ll be joined in the Bates event by college Dining Services Director Christine Schwartz. The event is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please call 207-786-6476.

Produced and directed by Robert Kenner, Food, Inc. aims to reveal the inside story of American food, the corporations that often place greater value on profit than consumer health, and the regulatory agencies, like the USDA and FDA, that oversee the industry.

Called “an essential, indelible documentary” by Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers, Food, Inc. features interviews with such respected experts as Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, and Omnivore’s Dilemma author Michael Pollan. Food-industry figures striving to change the status quo, like Polyface Farms’ Joel Salatin and Stonyfield’s Hirshberg, are featured describing their efforts to improve the quality of the food Americans consume.

Now chairman, president and “CE-Yo” of Stonyfield, Hirshberg came to the organization in 1983 as director of the Rural Education Center, the small organic farming school (with only seven cows) that spawned the yogurt operation. A renowned speaker on topics such as sustainability, organic agriculture and socially responsible business practices, Hirschberg is author of the 2008 book Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World (Hyperion).

The Londonderry, N.H.-based Stonyfield joined forces with Groupe Danone in 2001 to create Stonyfield Europe, of which Hirschberg was named managing director in 2005. Today, Stonyfield Farm makes an estimated $320 million in annual sales while always keeping its social and environmental missions square in its sights.

On the lid of a yogurt cup in Commons, Catherine Elliott ’12 of Edina, Minn., read about a contest that would fund playground upgrades for the organization that collected enough specially marked lids.

“Wow! We have a lot of yogurt lids here,” Elliott thought. “This opportunity exists — what can we do with it?”

What she did was gather 4,500-plus lids, enough to win the $50,000 “Double Play” grant from organic yogurt maker Stonyfield Farm and KaBOOM!, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing play into children’s lives.

Elliott posted fliers and placed collection boxes around campus. Dining Services workers pitched in, collecting lids that came back to the dish room on trays.

Elliott then cleaned the thousands of lids in her dorm. She developed an elaborate system in her room to dry them, involving trash containers in which she layered the washed lids with paper towels to soak up moisture.

“I had a fan that I clipped to my desk and had running 24 hours a day to help air them out,” Elliott says.

The contest actually provided grants for two deserving organizations. Elliott’s partner, the Boys & Girls Club of Auburn-Lewiston, won first prize, $50,000 worth of play-related improvements to the Clubhouse, including renovation of a gym floor. The first-place winners also got to choose a second $50,000 grant recipient: Elliott and Boys & Girls Club unit director Andie Hannon awarded this prize to the PTA at Laurel Elementary School in Laurel, Md.

Elliott, who is organizing her studies around social-justice issues, came to Bates with a track record of community organizing. Giving back, she believes, “is all about the unseen consequences of your actions. You don’t know how far they’ll reach.”

In a striking display of altruism and initiative, a Bates College first-year student collected enough yogurt lids to win a national contest. The prize: $100,000 in grants to help create and improve places for children to play for communities in Maine and Maryland.

On the lid from a yogurt container that she got in the Bates dining hall last fall, Catherine Elliott read about a contest that would provide a grant for a playground upgrade to the organization that collected enough specially marked lids. Working with the Bates community and the Boys & Girls Club of Auburn-Lewiston, what Elliott did was gather enough of the aluminum foil lids — more than 4,500 — to win two $50,000 grants from the “Double Play” program created by organic yogurt maker Stonyfield Farm and KaBOOM!, the national nonprofit dedicated to bringing play back to the lives of children.

• Video profile from WCSH/Portland.