Host a Food Drive
Thank you for wanting to join the fight against hunger in our community. Your efforts are essential to CEA’s mission of helping our neighbors in need. This section can guide you through having a successful food drive.
Getting Started
- Decide if you or your group will partner with any other groups or businesses.
- Identify a person in charge.
- Before you pick a date, you must contact CEA by email at admin@catonsvillehelp.org so we can schedule the receipt of your food and make sure we have staff/volunteers on hand to receive it.
- Determine how long your food drive will be. It can be as short as one day or as long as one month.
- Decide on a collection method. Medium size boxes are ideal as they can easily be transported. Check with local grocery stores as they may have boxes you can use.
- Set a goal for pounds of food you’d like to collect.
Publicize Your Event
- Once you’ve gotten the details nailed down, it’s time to start getting people interested in your event.
- Use our flyer template. Click here for a template for a food drive with a central drop off location (i.e. a church, business) or this one for a food drive where you will set a time to pick up food from people.
- Use social media and email to let people know about the drive and as a way to distribute the flyer.
Get Creative for Your Food Drive
- Give out empty grocery bags to food drive participants and ask them to fill them.
- Use a holiday such as Valentine’s Day or Halloween as the reason for a food drive.
- Have an event such as a birthday or anniversary party and have participants bring food.
- Have a hunger awareness day and give some information about hunger as you kick off the drive. See the Maryland Food Bank and Feeding America for good information.
Keep a Few Things in Mind
- Remind people to only donate items they would eat or use.
- Please ask for healthy and nutritious food items that are not expired.
- We cannot use rusty or unlabeled cans, expired food, perishable items, homemade items, open items, frozen food or refrigerated items.
After the Drive Is Over
- You need to have a scheduled appointment to bring the food to CEA so that we will have enough volunteers on hand to take in and weigh your donation.
- If your group would like to lend an additional hand and sort the food you’ve collected that would be a huge help to CEA. Please see below for a list of how we sort and organize the food on our shelves. You can sort it before you bring it or consider arranging with CEA to have some folks come to CEA to sort the food.
- Be sure to thank the coordinators and participants.
- Share your success! Tell others and post photos on social media.
And THANK YOU for your support.
Food Sorting Instructions
Thank you for sorting the food from your food drive; it is an enormous help to CEA. Please sort only as described below so it won’t require our volunteers to re-sort the food. If you are unsure of some items, just put them together and mark them “uncertain.”
Sort food by expiration/best by date:
- Separate and pack food by expiration year.
- We are not accepting any food that is expired or without an expiration date.
Sort and divide type of food by dry versus canned:
- DRY – ANYTHING IN A BOX SUCH AS: cereal, spaghetti, pasta, dry soups, pudding, cocoa mix, crackers, mashed potatoes, oatmeal, rice, granola bars, cookies, cake mix, etc.
- CANNED – canned items such as vegetables, canned meals, peanut butter, canned soup, beans, etc.
Pack these items separately:
- CONDIMENTS – Olives, mustard, ketchup, salad dressing, pickles, salsa, etc.
- PAPER PRODUCTS – Paper products, detergent, personal hygiene items, coffee, tea, sugar
- SINGLE SERVE ITEMS – Individual packages of tuna, beans, non-microwaveable dishes, single serving fruit, applesauce, juice boxes.
