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- Food donation programmes
Food donation programmes
Events can harness the power of bringing people together, to donate food (e.g. non-perishables) to food banks as a collective, and as a part of our event strategies.
There are thousands of people each week across the North East accessing food banks. Making food donations to any of the region’s food banks is relatively simple. Events present a real opportunity for crowd sourcing food donations for the local food banks. For event planners, this opportunity is relatively barrier free, and will make a tangible, positive impact within the local community.
The challenge is often ensuring that you are collecting the right items, ones which the local food bank needs. You can find out what each food bank needs by using Donation Genie and Give Food, searchable database websites that include links to each food bank per region, and also lists the items each is in need of. The food bank websites will also confirm drop-off points and opening times.
Enabling a food donation collection at your event:
When communicating with attendees, you can tell them the items you’d like them to bring to the event to donate if they can, who items will be donated to, and some of the stats around the number of people accessing that food bank, to bring to life the impact donations will have.
To integrate the collection of donations into your event, you will need to set up a collection area within your event venue (check this with the venue first) and produce some simple signage at the venue so people can easily find the drop-off point.
If you are anticipating a large donated amount, it would be wise to connect with your chosen food bank prior to the event to check on the items they need and work out when and where the best drop-off time and location would be (some food banks have warehouses as well as smaller, supermarket type drop-off points which may be easier for larger quantities). The food bank may be able to provide van pick-ups from your event location. However, it is most likely that you will need to plan to take the items from the event venue to the food bank, so it will be important to understand opening times and drop-off points in the planning phase.