The Grove City Vineyard Group is conducting a food drive to benefit the Mid-Ohio Food Bank for the whole month of June! Why not join us? This is an excellent opportunity for church small groups, employers, and individuals to make an impact in Central Ohio. Our goal is to collect 25,000 items and $2,500 dollars by June 25th!

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Recommended steps:
1. Gather a group of people – Food drives are fun and easy when you have a big group of people! Announce your idea to your church small group, sports team, friends, family, or whoever!

2. Determine who will be the coordinator – It helps if you have a detail-oriented and organizational person who is good at planning events. This person will be the glue that brings all the pieces together.

3. Assign roles – Who will gather the materials? Who will print flyers? Who will staple the flyers to the bags? If you are sending multiple teams to the same neighborhood, who will map out territory so you don’t overlap the same houses? Who will drive? Who will knock on doors to pass out bags? Who will pickup the bags when they are full? Who will temporarily store the food in their garage or basement?

4. Exchange phone numbers – Make sure everyone in the group has each others’ contact information and what role they are doing. This will make sure everyone is on the same page.

5. Pick a collection method – We recommend the following collection method:

• On June 7th, knock on doors to pass out bags. With a big smile, introduce yourself by saying, “Hi, my name is Brian and I’m a volunteer for the Mid-Ohio Food Bank. We are doing a food drive for Operation Feed. We would like to give you this bag for you to fill up with non-perishable food items at your convenience this week. We’ll be driving through your neighborhood on June 14th between 10am and noon to pickup this bag from your doorstep. Would you like to help us bag hunger?”
• If they take a bag, write down their name and address on your clipboard so you don’t forget which houses have made a commitment. Before you go, lavish them with several thank you’s.
• If they don’t take a bag, thank them for their time and don’t get discouraged! Keep smiling.

6. Gather materials – Don’t procrastinate with this step! If you know that you’ll only need 30-40 paper bags, you can go to your local grocer and they might be happy to donate them without any paperwork. However, if you need over 100 bags, contact your grocer ASAP because some of them cannot give away that many bags without a donation request form. You would need to know things like a tax id number, 501(c)3 number, and perhaps a copy of a non-profit certificate. This type of paperwork can only be done by Twoshirts because we are official coordinators of Operation Feed. Bottom line: If you kindly ask for a small amount of bags, you’ll be OK. If you need a lot, contact us ASAP at baghunger@brianstevenson.com to make arrangements. We have a reserve of bags that we can give you.

7. Print Flyers – We have color PDF flyers immediately available on our website at twoshirts.org. For the best results, you’ll need a high-quality printer and some paper. You can even take the PDF’s to Kinko’s. We also have a small reserve of flyers if you need them. Our email address is baghunger@brianstevenson.com

8. Pick a date and time – Saturday mornings from 10am to 11:30am are good times for going door-to-door. Be sure to organize this event so you have all your food turned in by June 25th.

9. Pick a location – If you’re doing this with a church small group, you may want to consider doing the neighborhood immediately surrounding your host home. If you’re an individual, you may want to consider your own neighborhood. If you’re a different kind of group, pick a neighborhood that is familiar to most everyone.

10. Before you go out, tell Twoshirts! – Some people call the Mid-Ohio Food Bank to verify a food drive is legitimate. So please remember to tell us before you go out so your collection efforts are as productive as possible! Please send an email to baghunger@brianstevenson.com with your Coordinator name, the dates your drive, the name of the housing subdivision, and the nearest major intersection.

11. Count items & store food in a basement or garage – When you finish your food drive, count how many items you have collected. Store the food for a short period of time until we can make arrangements to collectively move the items directly to Mid-Ohio Food Bank for our final weigh in! Email us the total number of items you have collected, the number of bags you have, the address where the food is being stored, and the name and phone number of the person storing the food. We’ll contact you when we’re ready to pickup the food. Our email address is baghunger@brianstevenson.com

12. Have fun, take pictures, and tell us your story! – Log on to twoshirts.org and click “Share a User Story”.