Community food drives help keep your food bank stocked with foods for families in need in our area. Will you accept the challenge to help keep our shelves stocked? Bonus if you decide to make your event an annual one! Hunger knows no season; help keep people fed all year long. Looking for fun ideas? Check out our list below.

If you would like help promoting your event, please do not hesitate to ask! Contact our Development & Special Events Coordinator at (512) 392-8300 x230 with any questions.

Please register your food drive so we know about it! It helps us know when to expect your drive to be delivered so we have volunteers and space available for your donation.

Friendly Competition:

• Nobody likes to lose, so why not host a friendly competition to make things more interesting? The great thing about these food drive competitions is that all ages can compete. Classes, clubs, departments, offices, or organizations can compete against each other to bring in the most pounds of food (or number of items) to be donated. Be sure and offer a good reward to the winning team! Kids love pizza parties and adults love to wear jeans to work (and pizza parties).

Create a CANstruction:

• No matter how old you get, building things is always fun! Collect non-perishable food items and challenge people to a build-off. Post pictures of your progress and results and have your followers choose the favorite! Be sure to send us your photos because we would love to share your philanthropic creativity! At the end of the competition, have the winning team bring in all the collected food donations for a fun photo op!

Designate Different Food Items:

• Have fun with collecting and create a different theme for each week. Encourage donors to participate by offering an incentive for each time they give. Perhaps you can have a drawing for a fun prize that everyone who participates at least 5 times in is eligible for.

Build A Meal:

• We all know how important three healthy meals are a day, so host a food drive focusing on one of those specific meals. You can also challenge participants to collect meal items and see who can feed the most individuals three meals a day. Have fun and be creative; it’s your food drive!

Fill Up a Vehicle:

• This is a challenge for those who are really committed to collecting on a grand scale. If you are at a school, challenge the students to collect enough food to fill up a school bus. If you work with the city, fill up a fire truck. If you own a towing company fill up a tow truck (fill up another vehicle and hook it up to the tow truck as an added challenge). Nearly any vehicle will work for this type of food drive, so use your imagination! How awesome will it be when you drive the filled vehicle to the food bank to drop off your plethora of donations!

Neighborhood Scavenger Hunt:

• Children love games, so make collecting food for the hungry into a fun challenge for kids. Create a scavenger list, or use ours and send them out into the neighborhood (under adult supervision) to collect from residents. Our list has an approximate goal of 50 pounds of food per child, but feel free to collect more! If anybody takes pictures, share them with us! Imagine if all of the neighborhoods in Hays County did this! After the kids have finished collecting, bring them in for a tour of the food bank. They can help weigh, sort, and restock our shelves with their donations