Fun Food Drive Ideas

The Ideas Bank

Here is a list of ways to spice up your food and fund drives, we want them to be enjoyable, fun and successful for everyone involved! If you have a great idea that is not on this list please email jvaughan@secondharvest.org.

Visual Goals
Set a goal and create a tracking system that your participants can see daily, this can include a thermometer, a chart, etc. It is a proven fact that when participants can see the progress they work harder at meeting the goal.
Fundraisers

A car wash, bake sale, and dessert auction are all great ways to raise additional funds for your event. You may even want to attach a canned food drive to the event.

Company Matches

Companies will oftentimes match the monetary donation to a charity of choice on behalf of their employees. Check with your Human Resources or Payroll departments to see if your company has a program.

The Big Challenge
ho doesn’t like to see people make a fool of themselves? Let your team know that if they meet the goal that has been set for the food and funds drive that you or another authority figure will dress up in a silly costumes, or take a pie to the face, etc.
Competitive Spirit
Everyone has a little bit of a competitive streak so you can have various departments compete against one another to see who can collect the most food and funds. Make sure the prize is a fun one like a popcorn, pizza, or ice cream party. Feeling really generous? Offer time off with pay.
“Items” of the day
Working off of our “most wanted items list” assign an item for each day of the week, doing this encourages your teams to to work towards the common goal of gifting the Food Bank with the items they utilize the most.
Skip a meal out
Encourage your team to skip one meal out and instead donate the Funds saved from that meal back to the Food Bank. Did you know that for ever $1 donated we can purchase $5 worth of food? Pretty cool, right?
Loose Change
Place a secured change jar or bucket in a highly used location where people can empty their pockets of that noisy loose change.
Jeans for Charity
Set a price and allow your team members to wear jeans for one day in support of charity. We have also seen where companies or organizations will set a slightly higher price and allow members to wear jeans every Friday for the month as an example.
Raffle Prize
See if a few local businesses or even departments in your organization would like to donate raffle prizes and you can sell the tickets to raise additional funds for your drive. You can even give a free ticket away for every 5 cans donated.
Donation Envelopes
You can distribute these to all team members at the beginning of the food and funds drive, sometimes people like to give in private so this will reach that segment.
Special Events

If your food and funds drive falls during a special event for your company you can tie it in by offering discounted admission, a free drink ticket or a special raffle item.