Canned Food Drives versus Virtual Food Drive (VFD), what’s the difference? In the post pandemic world, many things have changed including Food Drives. While Canned Food Drives used to be the only option for donation food, in recent years Virtual Food Drives have paved the way for new ways to give.
What’s a Canned Food Drive? A Canned Food Drive is when a collection of canned goods is gathered or donated to an organization who is collecting them on behalf of another entity. Canned Food Drives have been happening for a long time; most often found in schools, grocery stores, and businesses. They can consist of shelf stable food items, dry goods, hygiene products, and more.
What’s a Virtual Food Drive? An efficient, impactful way to fundraise with your peers! A Virtual Food Drive is a low stress way to involve your friends, families, and coworkers to help our fight against hunger. Instead of going to the grocery store and being unsure of what or how much to purchase, or rummaging through your own pantry, you can let us do the heavy lifting.
Virtual Food Drives are an easy way to help Freestore Foodbank allowing our purchasing power to go further with your donation. Thanks to community connections to grocery stores, manufacturers, distributors, Feeding America and more, Freestore Foodbank is able to purchase more products for less price. This means your donation goes even further than it would at our local grocery stores.
More than just purchasing power, Virtual Food Drives help alleviate costs, time, and stress of Canned Food Drives for Freestore team members. Canned Food Drives are valuable and appreciated always, but it can be cumbersome in other ways. From the drivers who pick up the donations, gas used, time spent to get it into the warehouse, team members to separate and catalog it, and then package it to be sent to our markets, there is a lot that happens behind the scenes with every donation large and small.
While we have put new policies in place to be mindful of everyone’s time, we still accept Canned Food Drives. Something you may not know about Freestore Foodbank, is that we work with over 600 agencies around 20 counties to provide food and support! These agencies range from schools, medical facilities, religious organizations, and more. If you would be willing to donate a Canned Food Drive to a local agency, please take a look at our partner agency’s(link stays the same) that are nearest you that could use your support!
If you are interested in a Canned Food Drive, please fill out the form below and it will be sent to our team. We will reach out with additional quetsions and information after your request has been reviewed. Thank you for thinking of Freestore Foodbank and helping us end hunger in the tristate.