Help Feed Local Families! Participate in our Community Wide Food Drive!

Save to Favorites

Families Forward's food pantry serves on average nearly 450 families per month. During the spring and summer months, the amount of food in our pantry sinks extremely low with shelves and bins nearly empty. Through the Community Wide Food Drives, a huge influx of food comes in and enables Families Forward to distribute vital food to families in need.

Volunteer Group’s Role/Implementation:

• Each group is assigned one or more stores to staff with their own volunteers.
• Each store should have a "store captain" to oversee volunteers, coordinate shifts, pass on procedures and materials, and communicate with the store manager if necessary.
• On the week of the event, the "store captain" will come to Families Forward to pick up the materials that the group will need to collect food in front of the grocery store.
• The food drive runsfrom 9:00am to 3:00pm on Saturday and 11:00am to 3:00pm on Sunday. Most groups choose to break this into 2 hour shifts.
• Groups recruit 2-4 volunteers to work shifts at each store site. No more than 4 volunteers are allowed to be at each shift. Property management policy, sorry!
• Volunteers greet shoppers, hand them a small food list, and explain they are collecting food for Families Forward to help provide food for families in need. Families Forward provides food lists and literature about the mission for the volunteers to give out. Many shoppers are very happy to pick up a few extra items to donate!
• When the shopper exits the store, the volunteers collect donated items in a grocery cart.
• At the end of each shift/throughout the day, volunteers designated as "drivers" deliver the collected food to the Families Forward warehouse.
• Our food pantry will be open from 11:00am-4:00pm on Saturday and 12:00pm-4:00pm on Sunday for these food donation drop-offs.