SFF is Frustrating

[BluejacketScouter 10]

Thanks everyone, obviously I was being facetious about leaving the expired items on the doorstep.

 

Maybe I'm not being facetious about asking the pack to do a service project this fall...put out flyers for "pantry clean-out day"...rid your pantry of expired items, and the Cubs will pick it up and haul it away. Problem solved!!

 

If the glass was in the forest and no one was there to see it, would it be half anything?

[Jay K 15]

I've had people come to the dorr and start telling me everything that is wrong with Scouting.

The glass is clearly 5/8ths full!

 

[packsaddle 753]

We switched to doing the drive in front of participating grocery stores. Store patrons were given small handouts which explained what we were asking for: that patrons would purchase a little extra food (the list had suggestions that were specifically needed by the pantries) and as the patrons left the store they deposited their NEWLY PURCHASED donations in baskets which were collected for the drive. It completely eliminated the expired, opened, etc. problems with the previous drives.

[MattR 2659]

Our food bank can buy ten times the amount of food for the same dollar than we can, so next year we're going to ask for monetary donations, too. This year we also asked for toiletries and extra winter clothing for the homeless. It took the same amount of time and we collected a lot more stuff that people could use. We had to sort toothpaste from peanut butter but the scouts had fun.

[kari_cardi 10]

Our district uses the method packsaddle described. It was easy and efficient to collect new groceries and the scouts had a lot of positive feedback from the shoppers.

[ZScout5 12]

It may be true that the food pantry can purchase food more efficiently. But please note that members (scouts and leaders) are not permittted to solicit monetary donations for their unit, chartered organization, or in support of other organizations.

 

[Deaf Scouter 23]

Changing your approach helps. We did and met with more success. On the fliers we stuck in bags, we stated 'NO expired food'. The food list ran in two columns with 7 lines on one side and three on the other. Leave quite a bit of space on the second column and type 'NO expired food' near the bottom of the second column lines.

 

We also set up a table in front of the food store (with the food store's permission) the night before and the day of the SFF. As people walked in they were handed 1/8th square size of the 8 X 11 xerox paper with a food list of things the Food Pantry was looking for. Those things were delivered on the way out the door by the shoppers and HELPED HUGELY in stopping expired food from ending in our loot... *grins

Probably threw out only about 6 -8 cans total from those that still did the street routes.