Single Item Food Drive
Post on: October 7, 2022Food Ideas:
A single item food drive can mean many things. The first option, and the one that would work best for Masbia, is to collect one brand and only the same sized cans of that brand. The staff and volunteers preparing the food pantry at Masbia would be extremely grateful for that but we understand that it is not very feasible. Therefore, a more realistic option is to collect one single food item of various can sizes. For example, you can call it a “Canned Tuna Drive.” But you can also choose to broaden your drive to include all kinds of fish (“Canned Fish Drive”) which could include canned tuna, salmon, sardines, etc. of all sizes. The least specific “single item” food drive would be to collect items from a specific food group. For example, you can have a “Protein Food Drive,” which would include all types of shelf stable proteins such as fish, beans (canned or dry), and peanut butter (see flyer used for a Bat Mitzvah girl who did a Protein Food Drive). We leave it up to you to try your best in keeping the drive to a minimal variety so we do not end up with small quantities of many different items, making it hard to distribute equitably to our clients.
Venue Ideas:
It is important to decide how and where you want to conduct your food drive. Try to think about where you will get the widest reach, such as your class at school, synagogue, etc. You should begin by creating a flier with all the details of the food drive (you can see an example of a flier here). If you choose to do at school, the flier can be distributed in class for kids to take home. You may want to consider timing your food drive to coincide with an existing event, either at school or at your synagogue, or with a holiday. For instance, if your school or synagogue has a BBQ or other such gathering already planned, see if you can tag along your food drive to the event. Or if you can make your food drive work around a holiday, such as in the leadup to Passover or Purim, consider doing it that way. Before Passover you might be able to a chametz drive? Or around Purim, create a food drive around Mishloach Manot by asking people to create extra mishloach manot.
The following are helpful links and photos to assist you in putting together ideas for your own single item food drive.