Creative alternatives to a food drive?

[Chimichanga]

I was just informed that my company will be partnering with a food bank in the area. It will be "our" charitable cause moving forward - and I am so excited we're doing this.

One of the women in charge casually asked me to think of some creative ways to drum up participation in our company.

Obviously we can have the traditional food drive, but the company would like some fresh ideas. Here's some of what we have:

Pay $2 day/$8 week to wear jeans every day (we get a jeans day on Friday anyways)
If goals are met, employees can go to the food bank to volunteer and still get paid
A "diaper" raffle - if employees bring in diapers (any size/brand) they get a raffle ticket for a larger gift certificate -- doesn't have to be diapers, it can be any item
Automatic payroll deductions from employees who choose to do so, that will go directly to the food bank
Backpack/school supply donations -- we don't know if the food bank goes to this level, but it's an idea that many people like


I am really excited about this, and really want to help with some ideas/run some of the options. But, I'm fairly tapped out now ;) Has anyone done something different to a traditional food drive? How did it work out? Were people excited about it? I'd love to hear ideas!! :D

TIA!!

[fuzzy]

Yea! I'm on the board of a local food bank, so I'm excited to hear you guys are doing this.

One thing we did that was really fun was to steal the overall concept of CANstruction (http://www.canstruction.com/indexn.html). In a nutshell, they build really cool stuff out of canned goods and then donate the cans to food banks. Obviously, the stuff they are building is, well, amazing. Our stuff wasn't like that! ;)

In fact, we asked different schools to build various sculptures and "compete" against each other (for some donated prizes). So our sculptures were very basic. However, it motivated the kids to bring different types of canned goods so they had more "building materials" for their projects. I could see the same working for an office with departments competing against each other.

[Happy1]

It's always fun if you can get someone from the company to volunteer to do something outrageous if the goals are met. Things like shave their head, wear funky lipstick for a day, etc.

Nikki :D

[jennylou]

Do you have departments, or teams? Any chance to set up a competition of sorts and reward the department with the most donations with a party of some sort? Ice cream social, pizza party, etc?

[Chimichanga]

We have quite a few departments and even within the departments, teams of various sizes. Prizes are definitely a great motivator at my company. :D

I didn't even think about the local high school. I had mentioned one of the groups at my college (the art students) would make clay bowls and sell them for $10 and the money would go to a local charity. And, if you brought the bowl to the cafeteria, you'd get a free bowl of soup. I think the CANstruction would be cool too!

Keep 'em coming!! :D

[mgrace]

A lot of foodbanks do accept school supplies/backpack donations. Going along with that thought, you might want to do specific drives. One department could do a diaper drive, like you mentioned, one could do kid friendly foods (fruit cups, juice boxes, etc.), one could do cereal, etc. You could choose a winning department based upon pounds or items donated.

I would ask the foodbank what products that they really need. It makes donors feel more useful and the foodbank will be happy, too.

CanStruction is always fun.

Depending on the capabilities/technology you have, you could do a virtual food drive (online).

[gf&js]

* Spare change drive - it all adds up
* Big goal for casual - our company has a huge food/clothing drive in November if we reach our goals (last year it was 16,000 lbs in clothes, 10,000 lbs in food, and $10,000 cash) we received the month of January as casual. Granted we are a larger campus (over 2,000 employees) it's amazing to see what people will do when given a good challenge with a fun reward
* Make a big deal of the delivery - we get the employees to create a human chain to load up a semi with all the items collected (yep - we fill a semi) and then bring as many folks over to help unload the donations too
* Theme days based on what the bank needs like mgrace mentioned - it could be personal items (shampoo/deodorant/toothpaste/etc), certain ethnic specialized items, baby items, etc.

Very cool and good luck!

[maxandmolly]

If you are thinking about school supplies, I would add school clothes to that, too.
We recently did a pot luck fund raiser-assorted people made big batches of food (I made a 13x9 pan of baked pasta) and those who don't make something donate $5 (or whatever) to eat the potluck items. We have a somewhat small office-less than 60 people-and we raised almost $300 from ours last week. It was a big hit.

Also, toiletries are important, too. Low income families that qualify for food stamps (which help but don't cover everything) or families who don't qualify for food stamps, some items really add up. Shampoo, conditioner, bath soap, toothpaste, etc, get expensive when you're super strapped for cash. One of our local charities puts together toiletries packs with donated hotel samples, so kids going into foster care can feel like they have their own stuff.

[NicoleWisconsin]

You could do a bake sale with the money going to the bank... Could also do CD sale, DVDs, books, whatever... people bring their things they don't want and donate, other people buy, money goes to food bank...

[Chimichanga]

Thank you everyone!!!

The directo from the food bank presented to our senior team this morning. The announcement is going to go out to the rest of the employees within a few weeks. We're still adding ideas to the list, but we've now go a great start!!! :D