Whoa! Food Drives?!

Have you ever seen folks outside of the grocery store collecting cans and donations for RVFB? That’s our weekly food drive crew and we’re in need of some new volunteers!

Our food purchase dollars go almost entirely to fresh fruits and vegetables and quality proteins. Food drives are absolutely critical for keeping our shelves well stocked with healthy non-perishable staples like rice and soup. 

What’s a food drive? 

Check out our food drive guide! The basic gist; volunteers pass out flyers at local grocery stores with suggested shopping items to donate to RVFB. Volunteer Erika Robillard describes her experience:

“I really enjoy doing food drives because I love being surprised by people! Some people barely make eye contact with you when they walk into the store, yet will come out with a cart full of food to donate. I also love watching parents teach their children about giving. It makes me so happy to see that future generations are learning to continue the work we are doing and hopefully by the time those children are grown, hunger and need will be a thing of the past!”  

Another volunteer, Regina Carretta, shares a similar sentiment: 

“Food drives give our neighbors the opportunity to share with their community.  One of my favorite aspects is when [adults] use the drives to teach the children in their care how important it is to think of others and share and the look on the kids’ faces when they bring out soup or pasta or rice from the store and put it in the bins themselves.”

Like Ericka and Regina have expressed, this is a great volunteer opportunity not only because it’s so important to the success of feeding 13,000 guests per month, but also because it feels great!  We’ve had several church groups, organizations, office teams, and schools conduct food drives for RVFB, always reporting back to us with smiles and barrels full of food.

With the holiday season quickly approaching, we understand it’s a busy time for everyone. But just volunteering for three hours on a Saturday can make 350 pounds of difference here at RVFB. That’s feeding families with things like a hot soup or a steaming bowl of pasta. Three hours can make all the difference to families on the many cold days to come. Help us stock our shelves so we can feed some hungry folks this holiday season.

Read up on our food drive guide for the whole nitty gritty.

Email michelef@rvfb.org to sign up

Check out our food drive calendar to see our future food drive locations!