Hold a Food Drive

Decide whether to hold your own drive or participate in a local food drive or event.
 
  • Decide when you'd like to hold your food drive. Although the holidays are a popular time of the year, food is needed year- round. You might consider holding a drive in the spring or summer when supply is especially low. Hosting a themed food drive, such as a collection to benefit kids during the summer months, is a great idea.
 
  • Decide how long to hold your food drive. Will it be one day, a week, a month? Or perhaps this an ongoing effort? It's entirely up to you.
 
  • Do you want to collect food, money, or both? We can also issue food collection boxes if you're hosting a drive.
 
  • Do you need posters? We can deliver them with boxes in many cases or you can download them yourself.
 
 
Host your food drive and give it plenty of support.
  • Email your co- workers, friends and neighbors to rally support.
  • Set a goal and monitor the progress.
  • Hold a contest between departments, classes, troops, etc. to see who can raise the most. Offer incentives for those who contribute the most to your drive.
 
 
  • If you've arranged to have our warehouse pick up your collection when you're nearing the finish of your drive, give our Warehouse Manager, Stephanie Johnson, a call at 425-255-5969 or leave her an email at stephanie.johnson@usw.salvationarmy.org .Note that we may need several days' lead time in order to pick up your donation.
 
  • If you're dropping off food at our Salvation Army Renton Rotary Food Bank, you deserve extra thanks!! You've saved us additional expenses that we can redirect towards serving our clients.
 
  • Pat yourself on the back for a job well done. How many meals did you serve to those in need? We estimate that 1.3 lbs of food or 22 cents serves one person one meal. Do the math and share your success with your participants!
 
The Salvation Army Renton Rotary Food Bank makes the most of our limited resources. Our costs are rising due to the higher price of food and fuel and in order to be good stewards of our resources, we must limit the number of trips our trucks make each day. We ask that you do all you can to stretch your donation farther by keeping the following things in mind:
  • The Salvation Army Renton Rotary Food Bank can drop off food collection boxes and pick up our donation. We ask that the boxes be full or close to full at the time of pick-up to allow us to be as efficient as possible. Each box is roughly the size of an office desk chair and it takes about 85 cans or boxes of food to fill one box. 
  • In most cases, we can only pick up in the greater Renton area. However, exceptions do occur and we ask that you contact our Warehouse Manger, Stephanie Johnson at 425-255-5969 or leave her an email at stephanie.johnson@usw.salvationarmy.org to see if we might be able to help.
  • We ask that you make the most of our drop- off site or consider participating in one of our ongoing events in the greater Renton area if you have collected a smaller amount of food.
  • Please note that November through December, our volume is especially high and it may take some time for us to approve food drive application or answer questions. We appreciate your patience. We encourage you to plan your food drive as far ahead as possible to avoid delays.
Where will your food go? After the food arrives at our Salvation Army Renton Rotary Food Bank, it is sorted by volunteers and packaged for distribution to Renton clients in need of food.
 
Still have questions? Please contact Stephanie Johnson at 425-255-5969 or stephanie.johnson@usw.salvationarmy.org
 
On behalf of our neighbors in need, thank you for supporting The Salvation Army Renton Rotary Food Bank!!!