RiceDepot.Org | Six Tips For A Successful Food Drive

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Six Tips For A Successful Food Drive
#1 Plan Ahead
Get a group together to brainstorm and plan your food drive. Allow plenty of time for planning a successful event. Pick a date that allows plenty of time. The number one mistake in planning special events is allowing too little time to do a good job. Planning on the front end means more success for your food drive. As soon as you have a group together and have decided on a target date, please contact the Arkansas Rice Depot so that our staff can be involved to help you along the way.

#2 Brainstorm Your Idea and Set A Goal
You will need to pull together a group to brainstorm your idea. What will your food drive look like? Your group should set a goal of some kind -- a certain number of pounds of food or enough cans to fill up a semi-truck, for example. You can organize a food drive around a theme -- maybe you want to focus on food for one particular program such as Food For Kids. Local sports teams often discount the price of admission to events for patrons who bring cans of food. You may also work out a similar arrangement with movie theatres or health clubs. Pick a cute and compelling name for the food drive.

#3 Get Your Group Organized
You need to assign roles or tasks in order to get it all done. Most importantly, you will need someone to oversee "food drive operations." This person will have the overall responsibility and vision for your project. You will also need a planner, publicity folks as well as someone to recruit those who will collect the food. Will you collect food door-to-door or by the barrel? How about getting local corporations or businesses involved by forming teams and hosting a competition?

#4 Publicize
Send out flyers to all members of your group and put out flyers around your community to boost donations. Get your local television & radio stations, cable television outlets and newspapers both informed and involved. Be sure you are clear about what kind of food is to be donated as well as when, where and how donations will be collected. Don't overlook the possibility of a public relations or marketing firm that might donate time and production to create flyers, posters and other material. Also, don't underestimate the power of word of mouth advertising. Talk about your food drive wherever you go -- church, the store or with friends.

#5 Collect The Food
As food is collected, try to place the food in small boxes that contain no more than 24 regular family-size cans of food. Cans of food are heavy and planning ahead will help everyone who has to lift, move, stack or unload the food. Regardless of how you collect food from donors, the food will have to be moved from collection points to the warehouse. Transportation ideas including recruiting volunteers with pick-up trucks or looking at the possibility of a moving company willing to donate a van for a day

#6 Celebrate Your Success
We would love to help you arrange for photos and media coverage. Call us to let us know the schedule of your food drive and when you expect to complete it. If we can communicate throughout your project, there is a much greater likelihood that yours will be a successful drive.

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For more information about organizing a food drive, please call (501) 565-8855 or e-mail us at contactus@ricedepot.org.