Hold A Food Drive
Help the Mid-Michigan Food Bank feed the hungry in our community, and let us help you have a successful food drive.
- Get started: A successful food drive requires organization and commitment.
- Establish a committee to organize the food and funds drive, and to motivate your members' participation.
- Set a goal of either the number of items collected or the pounds of food collected.
- Hand out copies of our brochure (find the printable pdf here).
- Set kick-off and finish dates. A one to two week drive works best.
- Distribute flyers, posters, and letters as needed to notify your target group of your drive.
- Set up a drop-off site for donated food and funds. (If needed, the Mid-Michigan Food Bank has boxes and barrels to assist.
- Wrap Up: You may deliver the items collected from your food drive to the Mid-Michigan Food Bank at 2116 Mint Rd. in North Lansing. (Delivering the items yourself helps to control the costs to Mid-Michigan Food Bank and allows us to use our funds to purchase needed items for pantries. However, we will gladly pick up your collection items if needed.)
Suggested Donations:
- Collect nonperishable food that comes in unbreakable containers (please stress "No Glass".)
- Ask especially for the most-needed items (such as peanut butter, tuna fish, beef stew, kids' snack foods, and fruits and vegetables).
- Consider donations of paper products such as diapers, toilet paper, and paper towel.
- Fulfill the request from many of our pantries for personal needs items. In high demand: laundry soap, dish soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, hand soap, and shaving cream.
Should I donate canned goods or cash?
Money can be used by the Mid-Michigan Food Bank to purchase items which are in short supply.
We can buy food at a much lower cost than individuals or agencies.
Money is also needed to cover the transportation cost of picking up donated food from our suppliers.
In sum, a dollar goes further through the Mid-Michigan Food Bank than it does at the grocery store
Please call 517-702-3357 for information on picking up the food donations or email Janette at
jmiller@midmichiganredcross.org. Be sure you have some members of your committee there to help load/unload the collected products. Let participants know of the success of your food drive afterward. This is also a good time to schedule another food drive.