Photo: © Grace Forbes

Photo: © Grace Forbes

Host a food drive

By leading a food drive benefiting the College Park Community Food Bank, you, and each participant, will make an impact on the lives of our neighbors.

Here is some helpful info for planning your food drive: 

What do we accept?

  • Clean, non-dented canned & boxed food items, not past their expiration date.

Preferred ITEMS

  • Beans

  • Tuna

  • Canned Fruit (in juice or light syrup)

  • Canned Veggies (no salt added or low sodium)

  • Peanut Butter

  • Pasta

  • Canned Tomatoes

  • Rice

Getting Started

As a food drive organizer, here’s a few steps to follow:

  1. Practice good hygiene and social distancing in the handling of the donated food. We suggest asking for food to be bagged and then handling the bags with gloves.

  2. Advertise your collection via email, NextDoor, Facebook, your neighborhood listserv – whatever works best for you. Let people know where and when they can donate. Then place clearly labeled boxes or bins in those locations.

  3. Set a deadline for collections and remind people when it’s approaching. This will help motivate people to submit their donations. Challenges are also useful – offer a goal of a certain number of items, participants or pounds collected.

  4. Take a picture! (if you want) We love to see the faces that help make all of this possible.

  5. Drop-off your collections. Complete this Donation Form to get drop-off instructions. And thank you!

Food Drive FAQs

  • What’s the best time of year to host a food drive?
    Now! We are serving twelve times the number of families than before the pandemic. Now more than ever, we need your help keeping our shelves stocked.

  • What if I receive a monetary donation during the drive?
    Fantastic! Try to collect the name and mailing address of those donors so we can send them a tax receipt for their contributions. Checks should be made out to “College Park Community Food Bank”.

More Questions? 

Please, contact us!

Conducting a food drive is a fun, simple and important way to support the food bank. Go for it!