Host a Food Drive

1. Tell us about your food drive!

We love to share your food and fund drives on our social media sites. Some donors visit our website or FaceBook page to see where they can bring food donations, so giving us your information may help increase participation. Even if your drive is internal and you aren’t looking for outside donations, telling us about your drive will help us to keep track of when to expect new food items to arrive. In order to keep a steady flow of food, we will stagger food drive dates when possible and coordinate our food purchases with times we know food drives will be few. Please email "> to notify our agency of your food drive once you set a date. We might ask for photos or a copy of your logo to share with our community.

2. Motivate and communicate with your audience!

If you’re planning an office drive, get management involved- offer an incentive for bringing items. Have your coworkers “pay” 5 food items to be able to dress down on Friday, or ask management to offer up a half day to the person or department that brings the most items. See if your company would be willing to match cash donations, or match each food item donated with $1. Send emails to everyone in the office and put up flyers in high-traffic areas such as bathrooms, elevators and bulletin boards.

If you’re planning a food drive at a school, have a competition between classes to see who can collect the most items. Have a pep rally to kick off the drive- give us a call and we can send an agency staff member to speak to students.  Have some art students make unique food drive flyers to hand around the school to remind everyone about the drive. Give updates on who is winning the competition on a daily or weekly basis over the PA system. Have a reward for the winning class- maybe a pizza party or ice cream sundaes. If you’re having a one-time event– a PTA meeting, a baseball game, a school dance, or a business retreat- spread the word as early as possible, and send a reminder a day or two before the event. If there is only one day when you are collecting food items, it’s important to remind your group a few times so that they remember to bring their items.

3. Promote! Promote! Promote!

Think of your audience and what modes of communication are available to get the most participation:

  • Emails
  • Flyers in office mailboxes
  • Posters and flyers in public areas
  • Press releases in a local newspaper
  • Announcements in a newsletter
  • Announcements on a PA system
  • Mention on a website
  • Social media – share on your Facebook and Twitter

4. Combine your food drive with a fund drive

Lots of people forget to bring their items while they are dealing with the everyday stress of life and prefer to make monetary donations. Checks can be made out to “South Kitsap Helpline.” If you plan to collect cash donations, please contact us for a cash can. You can bring that back along with any checks received to our main office between 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday when you drop off the food collected and we will provide you with receipts showing the total amount of food and funds raised by your group. If you need to make donations before or after our business hours listed above, please contact our oiffice at 360-876-4089 in advance to work out logistics so we can ensure someone is available and on-site to receive them.

    5. Set a goal

    Lots of people forget to bring their items while they are dealing with the everyday stress of life and prefer to make monetary donations. Checks can be made out to “South Kitsap Helpline.” If you plan to collect cash donations, please contact us for a cash can. You can bring that back along with any checks received to our main office between 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday when you drop off the food collected and we will provide you with receipts showing the total amount of food and funds raised by your group. If you need to make donations before or after our business hours listed above, please contact our oiffice at 360-876-4089 in advance to work out logistics so we can ensure someone is available and on-site to receive them.

      6. Ready to donate?

      Great! Please bring your donations to our main office located at 1012 Mitchell Avenue. We have staff available to receive your donations from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday,  Friday. Thank you!

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