Is Miss America still relevant? Definitely, say the contestants.

ATLANTIC CITY - Some local elementary-school children really, really want to meet Miss America.

So eager are they for a visit by the young woman who will be crowned Miss America 2017 this weekend that students from four schools collected thousands of cans of food in a competition/drive organized by the pageant, which distributed the goods Thursday to the Atlantic City Rescue Mission, which serves the homeless.

But exactly who else wants to greet Miss America - or even watch her be crowned - is a question that continues to be debated. The pageant faithful extol its virtues as a women's scholarship competition. Others see it as having evolved little from the beachside beauty contest started here in 1921 to extend the summer tourist season.

Miss New Jersey, Brenna Weick, a 22-year-old psychology major from Mantua, strongly defends the honor of being a contestant and the tradition of the pageant.

"It's great that we live in a country where little girls can dream about being Miss America or about being the president," said Weick, who was busy unpacking canned goods Thursday at the rescue mission. "There's a saying that 'if you can see her, you can be her,' and I think that makes Miss America more relevant rather than less relevant with every passing year. You can be whatever you want."

This year, the pageant has made headlines over the participation of the first openly gay contestant, Miss Missouri Erin O'Flaherty.

"Miss America is just not the national event that it once was . . . and it seems that every year there is a gimmick of some sort to get people interested in it again," contends Katherine Jellison, a women's studies scholar and history department chair at Ohio University.

"I just saw a news clip the other day about the first openly gay contestant, and I said to my colleague, 'Wow, that's pretty interesting.' And the next thing I said was, 'But when are they going to shut that thing down?' Because it's just so irrelevant.

"It seems like the pageant has to strive every year to be relevant, much less just solvent. There are so many other avenues for young women to obtain scholarships that don't involve women walking around in swimsuits and evening gowns."

The Miss America Organization signed a three-year deal last year to air the broadcast through 2018 with ABC and Dick Clark Productions, which manages the marketing of Miss America. The focus again this year by the network will be on just how many viewers actually tune in.

Last year's pageant featured the dramatic return of the actress and singer Vanessa Williams - the first African American Miss America - who had to relinquish her crown in 1984 after nude photographs of her surfaced. The telecast attracted about seven million viewers, about the same number as the previous year. The Miss America Pageant competed in 2015 against Sunday Night Football in the same time slot. The football game attracted 24.5 million viewers.

The beleaguered gambling town, through the state Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, has pledged $12.5 million in subsidies to the Miss America Pageant over the next three years.

A Bloomberg News analysis in July of data from the New Jersey Casino Control Commission and state Treasury Department showed that revenues from the state luxury tax and parking fees collected during the September pageant dates from 2013 to 2015 continued a steady drop after the competition returned to Atlantic City from Las Vegas.

Economic-impact studies conducted for the CRDA prior to the pageant's 2013 return to the Atlantic City indicated it could generate as much as $32 million in additional tourism revenue and $2.48 million in tax dollars. No follow-up studies have been done by the state to determine the actual numbers.

While the economic and cultural relevance of Miss America is debated, the young women who participate in it are passionate about the pageant.

"I think the pageant gives us not only a chance to earn scholarship money to pay for education, but it also gives us a voice and a platform upon which to promote ideas and service that we think is important," Miss America 2016 Betty Cantrell said as she helped this year's contestants organize the cans collected in the food drive.

"To me, it's more about service and the differences we can make and less about the swimsuit competition, which is really such a small part of all of it . . . and that is really about fitness and health and promoting that idea."

So it was a frenzied scene inside a food storage room off the kitchen at the rescue mission, where Cantrell and Weick and about other 18 Miss America contestants - clad in jeans and T-shirts instead of tiaras and sequins - unpacked the cardboard boxes and plastic bins of food. The winning Atlantic City school - one of them alone gathered 2,500 cans in two days - will be announced Friday, and the pageant will schedule an appearance by Miss America 2017.

The service work at the rescue mission offered the contestants kind of a break from a steady two-week schedule of touring, meet-and-greets, and preliminary competitions that will culminate this weekend with the annual "Show Us Your Shoes" parade on the Boardwalk on Saturday and the pageant on Sunday night.

"I think the pageant is relevant because it inspires a passion to give back to the community," said Miss Pennsylvania Samantha Lambert, 22, from Pittsburgh, who is studying engineering.

Lambert said her platform to promote brain injury awareness has allowed her to bring a topic to the forefront on an issue she has had firsthand dealings with after sustaining a head injury in high school performing acrobatic dance.

"Service really is what it is all about for Miss America," said Sam Haskell, CEO of the Miss America Organization, who attended the food drive event. "This is the heart and soul of what we do as an organization and really what ultimately empowers these young women."

Contact Jacqueline L. Urgo at 609-652-8382 or jurgo@phillynews.com @JacquelineUrgo