Successful food drives require enthusiastic leaders. Get people involved early to develop creative ideas, raise awareness, and increase participation levels. Follow these steps to ensure your food drive is a stunning success!

1. Set up a committee of team leaders with representatives from every level of your organization to coordinate the drive. Working as a team is important to keep things efficient and organized.
2. Determine food drive logistics: start and end dates, your method of collection, and whether you will be picking up barrels and dropping off food drive donations yourself, or whether you will need a Food Bank driver to deliver barrels and pick up food donations from your address.
3. Set goals! Setting a goal is a great way to encourage teamwork and provide contributors with a sense of accomplishment. Make goals realistic and easy to understand. For example, you could set a goal to collect 200 lbs of food (1 can of food is approximately 1 lb.).
4. Promote your food drive by making it creative and fun: incorporate competitions and themes, decorate boxes/food barrels and place them in strategic locations where they are in public view, and use fliers to advertise your event.
5. Use incentives to encourage participation. Start an internal competition between departments, classes, or coworkers, to see who can raise the most donations, and/or reward participants with prizes for their contributions. For example, reward a winning team with a pizza party or a day off for their efforts.
6. Maintain momentum by keeping participants updated about the food drive. Send out emails announcing the food drive, post progress charts, and keep participants informed with regular competition updates.
7. Build awareness! Use this food drive as an opportunity to spread the word about hunger in San Diego: read and distribute the Hunger Fact Sheet 2010 and send out links to our website www.sandiegofoodbank.org so that others can learn more.
8. Encourage financial contributions. Participants are welcome to donate money in lieu of food. Remember, for every $1 donated, the Food Bank can purchase enough food for three whole meals!
9. Take the time to thank everyone who participated. Give prizes to top teams, and send thank you notes to all participants. Publicize your success by letting the community know the total amount of food you collected and how many meals your food drive will provide.
10. Bask in the success of your food drive! Your donations will provide food to an individual or family in need.

Thank you for helping us feed the hungry in San Diego.

Click here to host a food drive!