Food & Funds Drive Coordinator’s Kit
Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina 500-B Spratt Street, Charlotte, NC 28206 • 704-376-1785 • www.secondharvestmetrolina.org A member of America’s Second Harvest – The Nation’s Food Bank Network
Dear Friend: Thank you so much for planning a food/fund drive to support Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina. The following pages offer many ideas and resources to help make your drive a success. Food and fund drives are an excellent way to educate the community about hunger in our area. Unfortunately, the problem of hunger in our region is one that has worsened in recent years. Over 160,000 of those living in poverty in our region are children and seniors. In addition, thousands are “working poor” families – working adults who are earning low wages and having a hard time providing for their families. The almost 600 agencies that the Food Bank supports in 19 counties in North and South Carolina are helping these children, seniors and working poor adults who daily make choices between paying rent and utilities or buying food and purchasing prescriptions. I encourage you to use this Food & Fund Drive Kit to make your food drive as successful as possible. Please feel free to make copies of any of the information that is included. If you need additional assistance, or to register your food drive, please do not hesitate to contact Toni Morris, our Food Drive Coordinator here at Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina. She can be reached at 704-375-9639, ext. 24. Together We CAN End Hunger. Warm Regards,
Kay Carter Executive Director
Together We CAN End Hunger
Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina 500-B Spratt Street, Charlotte, NC 28206 • 704-376-1785 • www.secondharvestmetrolina.org A member of America’s Second Harvest – The Nation’s Food Bank Network
Your Check-List
First, the basics:
Decide if you will raise food, funds or both. Decide what type of drive you want to have such as a party or a competition. Then set a goal. Select a date for your drive. Decide on the length of your food drive. Will it be for one day? One week? We recommend two to three weeks. Choose the drive’s location. Will it occur at one place or at several locations? Complete your Food & Funds Drive / Barrel Request Registration form and fax it toToni Morris, Food Drive Coordinator at Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina at 704-342-1601. If you have any questions, contact Toni directly at 704-375-9639, ext. 24 or tmorris@secondharvest.org
Next, get everything ready:
Organize a kick-off event for your food drive. Run copies of the Food Drive flyer (included in this kit). You can just cut and paste it into emails, or make copies of it to mail, or post in your office, school, church or other organization. Hand out shopping lists of most needed foods. We can tell you the most needed foods for different seasons (a sample list is included in this kit). Be sure to include your food / fund drive in your company newsletter, in email signatures and even on your voicemail messages! Make it easy for folks to help – place grocery bags at everyone’s desk or hand out at staff meetings, school assembly events or church services. Place your barrels in convenient and visible areas – insure that they aren’t being utilized as trash receptacles throughout your food drive.
Then, during the drive:
Take photos (include names of those photographed) and make sure that Second Harvest Food Bank receives copies of them – they may be used in an upcoming newsletter or on our web site. Keep promoting your drive to friends, family, co-workers, etc. Encourage cash donations by advertising How Far Your Donation Goes with information from our website. Did you know that a $1 donation to Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina equals 6 pounds of food or four meals….$1 = 6 pounds = 4 meals. Have Macaroni Mondays, Tuna Tuesdays, or Peanut Butter Week to encourage donations of high protein foods. Update participants on the amount of food/funds you’ve collected through a sign at the food drive locations and also by annoucing updates in meetings, newsletters, emails and press releases (sample release is included in this kit). Plan to bring your group to Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina to participate in a food sorting or repacking project. Give Shay Merritt, our Volunteer Coordinator, a call at 704-375-9639, ext. 29 or at smerritt@secondharvest.org, with questions about volunteering. If you are delivering the food to Second Harvest Food Bank, coordinate volunteers to pack food at the end of the drive. Load and transport it to the food bank.
Finally, when the drive is over…
Send the Food and Fund Drive Report Form (included in this kit) with the Second Harvest Food Bank Driver if your food/funds are being picked up. If you are delivering your food/funds, come to Second Harvest Food Bank’s business office at 500-B Spratt Street between the hours of 7:30am – 4:00pm Monday through Friday - tell our front desk staff that you are here to drop off your food drive results. Share your food/fund drive results with all participants. Send thank-you letters to those that helped you through the food drive. Host a recognition party rewarding the competition winners with humorous prizes; take pictures and include in company newsletter or post on company website. Be sure to recognize all participants because every pound counts! Write down your good ideas for your next drive and remember….
Together We CAN End Hunger Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina 500-B Spratt Street, Charlotte, NC 28206 • 704-376-1785 • www.secondharvestmetrolina.org A member of America’s Second Harvest – The Nation’s Food Bank Network
Fun Ideas for Raising Food & Funds
• • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Fun Ideas:
Have a denim day and allow staff or students to “buy” a casual or jeans day for a certain amount of money or food. Do a “denim day” sticker to give those that donate. “Can Suits” or “Beans for Jeans”. Give a pizza party to the department or class that raises the most food. Host breakfast for the department that raises the most funds or food. Set a poundage or monetary goal and when it is met – the boss or a teacher shaves their head – this one is always a big hit! Sponsor a bake sale or organize a cake walk. Recycle your treasures at a garage sale and help end hunger at the same time! Collect food and funds at sports events at your school. Bag it. Sponsor a brown-bag lunch. Ask staff to donate the cost of a lunch or to donate a bag of nonperishable food items. Have an ice-cream social in the summer or a chili-cook off in the fall in your neighborhood. Challenge your office to fill a specific number of grocery bags at a holiday event – the winner gets a day off! Invite family and friends to make donations to Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina as a birthday, anniversary or holiday gift. Organize pledge drives. Ask family and friends to pledge money if you walk or bicycle a specific distance. Have a lemonade stand. Plan a coin challenge between departments or classes. Each group collects coins in a container and at the end of your drive – the winning team wins a pizza party!
• • • • •
Foster Competition:
Do department challenges, classroom challenges, team challenges. Friendly competition adds great energy to a drive and helps people remember to donate. Offer rewards to top donors (pizza parties, gift certificates donated by local businesses, a front-row parking space for a month, etc.) Assign specific foods from the “Most Needed Item” list (included in this kit) or give a prize to the group that donates a well-balanced collection of foods. Encourage teams to choose a mascot, motto, team name or cheers. The sillier, the better! Encourage cash donations. A dollar goes a long way to bring food to people in need. It’s also easier to store, deliver and easier to count. For every $1 donated, Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina can collect and distribute 6 pounds of food. Teams that donate cash get ahead quickly!
• • • •
Be Creative!
Create a giant thermometer or can to measure progress toward your goal. Place the thermometer or can in the front lobby, lunch room or employee break room. Design a paycheck stuffer with information about your food drive. Give your food drive a name such as “Hunger Heroes”, “Feed the Need”, “Charlotte CAN”, etc. Communicate great! Via your workplace’s email system or public address system, distribute a hunger fact a day (included in this kit) during your drive. Quiz people at random and hand out little prizes to people who know the facts! Do you have a fun drive idea that you would like for us to include in our Food Drive Kit? Email it to Toni Morris at tmorris@secondharvest.org.
Facts at a Glance
MISSION
Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina (SHFBM) strives through education, advocacy, and partnerships to eliminate hunger by the solicitation and distribution of food. SHFBM has been in existence since 1981.
WHO WE ARE & WHAT WE DO
Provide a regional distribution warehouse and branches that supply food and grocery items to charitable agencies that assist people in need. Provide training, consultation, technical assistance, and hunger education to our partner agencies.
COUNTIES SERVED
Serve 14 counties in North Carolina including Anson, Burke, Cabarrus, Catawba, Cleveland, Gaston, Iredell, Lincoln, Mecklenburg, Montgomery, Rowan, Rutherford, Stanly and Union. Serve 5 counties in South Carolina including Cherokee, Lancaster, Spartanburg, Union and York.
AGENCIES SERVED
SHFBM provides food for over 650 partner agencies including soup kitchens like Urban Ministries, emergency pantries like Loaves and Fishes, residential care facilities like Florence Crittendon, homeless shelters like the Uptown Men’s Shelter, senior programs like Friendship Trays, and low income daycares like Wall’s Memorial A.M.E. Zion.
AMOUNT OF FOOD DISTRIBUTED
In fiscal year 2006-2007, SHFBM distributed over 20 million pounds of food and other essential grocery products throughout our 19 county service region.
HOW WE ARE FUNDED
80% of our income comes from fundraising including special events, grants, corporate donations, direct mail campaigns and other sources. The remaining 20% comes from small handling fees that are paid by our partner agencies on about one quarter of the food that we provide for them. These fees are designed to help us recover the costs of transporting, warehousing, processing and distributing food. The low-income recipients of the food never pay a fee.
- continued on reverse -
Page 2
THE NEED
12.6% of our service area population lives in poverty including over 160,000 children and seniors. Requests for help are increasing. Over 65% of our emergency pantries, soup kitchens, and homeless shelters reported an increase in the number of clients served last year.
WHERE OUR FOOD COMES FROM
Approximately 65% of the food we distribute is donated, approximately 25% of the food comes from government commodities, approximately 5% of our food is purchased and approximately 5% comes from food drives held in the communities we serve.
HOW WE DISTRIBUTE THE FOOD
Through our main warehouse in Charlotte and through our 3 satellite branches in Dallas (Gaston County), Mt. Gilead (Montgomery County) and Hickory (Catawba County). SHFBM has a five year plan for expanding our branch network with plans to add in Spartanburg and Rowan Counties in 2008.
SHFBM PROGRAMS
Community Food Rescue (Our Go Green program) – This program is designed to capture perishable foods such as produce, dairy, restaurant, and bread that might otherwise be thrown away. The food is picked up daily and delivered at no cost on the same day to agencies that feed on site. This program serves Mecklenburg and the immediately surrounding areas through the SHFBM main warehouse and through a branch site in Davidson. The program generally provides approximately 2 million pounds of food annually. Mobile Pantry – This program is designed to deliver food to rural areas of our service region where poverty rates tend
to be higher. Specially equipped trucks deliver 5,000 – 10,000 pounds of food per trip. Mobile pantry deliveries occur 10 months of the year with approximately 100 pantries held annually. In fiscal year 2007, we delivered almost 1.2 million pounds of food and served over 50,000 individuals through this program.
hunger to help provide nutritious meals and snacks at their sites. We currently operate 33 of these sites in 9 different counties and serve thousands of children who might otherwise go hungry. Our goal is to have sites in all 16 counties within 5 years.
Kids Café – This is our childhood hunger initiative. SHFBM partners with agencies that already serve children at risk of
Backpack Program – A component of the Kids Café Program, the Backpack Program is designed to provide children at
risk of hunger with backpacks full of ready to eat, nutritious foods for weekends and holidays when school meals are not available. This program currently operates in Mecklenburg, York, Anson, Union and Iredell Counties.
Five A Day Calcium Program – This program provides calcium rich foods and nutritional information to children and
seniors at risk of hunger in Cabarrus, Iredell, Mecklenburg, Stanly, Rowan, and Union counties.
Second Helping – This program provides supplemental boxes of nutritious foods to homebound elderly in York, Lancaster, Lincoln, Union and Cabarrus counties on a monthly basis.
Together We CAN End Hunger Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina 500-B Spratt Street, Charlotte, NC 28206 • 704-376-1785 • www.secondharvestmetrolina.org A member of America’s Second Harvest – The Nation’s Food Bank Network
Top Ten Most Wanted Food Items
Beef Stew Peanut Butter Macaroni & Cheese Tuna Dry Beans 100% Fruit Juices Canned Fruits Canned Vegetables Soups Cereals
Non-food items are also greatly appreciated. The most needed are:
Paper Products Diapers Cleaning Supplies Personal Hygiene Items
Remember, $1 goes a very long way for Second Harvest Food Bank – so funds drives are a great way to help!
Together We CAN End Hunger Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina 500-B Spratt Street, Charlotte, NC 28206 • 704-376-1785 • www.secondharvestmetrolina.org A member of America’s Second Harvest – The Nation’s Food Bank Network
SAMPLE PRESS RELEASE
(Your Letterhead Here) FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact Name Organization Name Telephone Number HEADLINE (IN ALL CAPS) Indent each paragraph and double space between paragraphs. Leave room for one inch margins around the copy. Begin with the name of your city and the date in parentheses (Charlotte, NC, September 1, 2007). The first paragraph should contain your most important information - who, what, when, where, and why. It should be a brief summary of your food drive: the dates, locations for collection barrels, and collection times, if appropriate. Additional paragraphs may include information about the need for food assistance and your organization as well as Second Harvest Food Bank. See below for our boilerplate paragraph about who we are and what we do. You may also include a quote from your campaign chairperson. If you need a quote from Second Harvest’s Executive Director, please contact Donna B. Ragan at the phone number listed below. The rules are simple. Paragraphs and sentences should be short and to the point. Have a catchy headline, all in CAPITAL LETTERS, be sure to have something that may interest the editor, include your contact information, and ALWAYS fax, e-mail, mail, or hand deliver it to the appropriate person at your local media outlet. Use three numbers symbols immediately following the last paragraph to indicate the end of the press release. ###
Boilerplate information for news releases: Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina serves 19 counties in North and South Carolina. In 2006-2007, the Food Bank distributed over 20 million pounds of food and essential grocery items to almost 600 nonprofit agencies and churches serving the needy as well as to food banks in other areas. NOTE: Any advertisement using the Second Harvest Food Bank name or logo must be approved by Second Harvest prior to distribution. The same is true for any news release containing more than the boilerplate information above. Contact Donna B. Ragan at 704-375-9639 ext. 11 Marketing / PR / Special Events contact for more information.
Drop-Off Day:_________________
Pick-Up Day:________________
Food & Fund Drive Registration / Barrel Request Form
Fax: 704-342-1601 Attn: Toni Morris Mail: Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina, 500-B Spratt Street, Charlotte, NC 28206 Please consider assisting the Food Bank in lowering its fuel and manpower costs by making arrangements for your organization to pickup supplies and delivering the food collected if at all possible. Date of Your Food Drive:______________________________________________________________________________________ Company / Organization / School:_______________________________________________________________________________ Branch / Department:_______________________________________ # of Employees / Students / Members:__________________ Contact / Coordinator Name:_________________________________ Title:_____________________________________________ Phone:__________________________________________________ Fax:_____________________________________________ E-mail Address:___________________________________________ Web Site:_________________________________________ Mailing Address:_____________________________________________________________________________________________ City / State / Zip:_____________________________________________________________________________________________ Delivery Address:____________________________________________________________________________________________ City / State / Zip:_____________________________________________________________________________________________ Specific Directions for Delivery of Barrels / Supplies:_________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_______ Number of Food Drive Barrels _______ Number of Food Drive Posters _______ Number of Food Drive Grocery Bags Please note that we will try to meet your requested delivery and pick-up date requests, however due to the high volume of requests, we cannot guarantee them.
Best of luck on your food drive and remember…..Together We CAN End Hunger.
Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina 500-B Spratt Street, Charlotte, NC 28206 • 704-376-1785 • www.secondharvestmetrolina.org A member of America’s Second Harvest – The Nation’s Food Bank Network
How to Gauge Your Food Drive Results
Use the chart below to determine how many pounds you have collected and how many meals that will provide.
If Your Barrel is… You have Provided…
25% FULL
35 Pounds / 35 Meals
50% FULL
75 Pounds / 75 Meals
75% FULL
115 Pounds / 115 Meals
100% FULL
150 Pounds / 150 Meals
Please note: All figures are approximate. Final results will vary depending on types of food donated. Canned goods weigh more than boxed items.
Food Drive Tips:
- Collect non-perishable food items only. - Encourage donation of items from our “Most Needed” list. - Avoid glass containers. Plastic containers, tin cans, or boxed items are best. - Donations will usually assist families, so encourage people to contribute items in sizes they would use at home. - The Food Bank is closed on weekends and holidays. Deliveries and pickups should be scheduled accordingly. For questions, please contact Toni Morris at tmorris@secondharvest.org.
Together We CAN End Hunger Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina 500-B Spratt Street, Charlotte, NC 28206 • 704-376-1785 • www.secondharvestmetrolina.org A member of America’s Second Harvest – The Nation’s Food Bank Network
Food & Fund Drive Report Form
To be delivered with your food / fund drive delivery - Attn: Toni Morris Please consider assisting the Food Bank in lowering its fuel and manpower costs by making arrangements for your organization to pickup supplies and delivering the food collected if at all possible. Date of Your Food Drive:_________________________________________________________________________ Company / Organization / School:__________________________________________________________________ Contact / Coordinator Name:_________________________________ Title:_______________________________ Phone:__________________________________________________ Fax:________________________________ E-mail Address:___________________________________________ Web Site:____________________________ Mailing Address:_______________________________________________________________________________ City / State / Zip:_______________________________________________________________________________ Did You Collect Food? Yes_____ No______
If Yes, How Many Pounds? ______ Pounds Did You Collect Funds? Yes_____ No______
If Yes, Please Note: Cash (coins & bills) Checks / Credit Cards Total: $_______ $_______ $________
Unless otherwise instructed, all donors will receive an acknowledgement letter and receipt for donations. Gifts to Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.
Together We CAN End Hunger.
Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina 500-B Spratt Street, Charlotte, NC 28206 • 704-376-1785 • www.secondharvestmetrolina.org A member of America’s Second Harvest – The Nation’s Food Bank Network
500-B Spratt Street Charlotte, NC 28206 704-376-1785 www.secondharvestmetrolina.org