Hold a Backpack Food Drive. Fight Childhood Hunger!

One way that we work toward hunger relief is through a backpack distribution program that serves the children in our afterschool program. We provide weekly backpacks to over 100 students in the Radford area, who otherwise may not receive a hot meal away from the school breakfasts and lunches served throughout the week.

Donors, volunteers, civic, and faith based groups commonly help us fight childhood hunger by hosting food drives at local grocery stores. The drives help provide 4 weekend meals and snacks for children enrolled in our Radford afterschool programs. Backpacks are typically provided for 42 weeks during the school year and summer. Food drives are helpful year round. If you’re interested in hosting a food drive, here are the steps.

Step One: Review our Food Drive Kit
The guide provides you with resources for organizing and holding food drives for Beans and Rice, Inc.We’ve included some helpful FAQs to get you started.

Step Two: Register your food drive
Complete our online volunteer interest form and provide us with the following information – your name, contact information, group name, number of volunteers, event(s) date. Once this is received we’ll contact you to provide more information and coordinate logistics

Step Three: Consider collecting funds as part of your drive
While most of the items we need are available at local grocery stores, there are some items that we purchase wholesale. Cash donations help us purchase these items and 100% of food drive donations go to direct backpack food costs. Ways to give:

• Give online. This is the easiest option for collecting donations. To ensure that all online donations are attributed to your drive, please designate it for “Backpacks.”
• Collect cash and check donations: download our paper donation form. If donors to your drive would like to receive a receipt from us for tax purposes, they must complete this form and submit it in an envelope with their donation.
• Get your total. At the end of your drive, call our office at (540) 633-6270 and request your grand total.

STEP FOUR:
Hold your drive and deliver your bounty to our Radford office at 1608 West Main Street.

Resources

Read our Food Drive Kit (PDF) to learn about hosting a food drive.

Most Wanted Food Items