Scouting for Food Unit Coordinator s Toolkit

Scouting for Food Unit Coordinator s Toolkit

Scouting for Food Toolkit Table of Contents Food Drive Overview (page 1) Goal Donations Uniforms Reporting Recognition items Door Hangers (page 2) Door Hanger/Thank You Door Hanger Personalize them Advertise Pack/Troop Collection (page 3) Church bulletin Church/Bank/School marquee Neighborhood newsletter Yard Signs Door To Door Collections (page 4) Only if comfortable in known area Buddy system Appropriate leadership Food Collection Barrels (page 4 continued) Scouting for Food Sign Personalize with unit s goal and identification Unit Presentations (page 5) Educate our Scouts on hunger in their communities Unit Celebrations (page 6) Recognition Participants Success of any and all food collected Entering Service Hours Appendix (pages 7 10) Unit Scouting for Food Report Barrel Sign option 1 Barrel Sign option 2 Hunger Fact Sheet

Food Drive Overview Our council promotes an annual Scouting for Food Drive in which a pack/troop visits a designated area, leaves a flyer on a door knob, then returns about a week later on a designated date to collect any donated food in that same area. If that particular method doesn t work for your unit, don t throw up your hands and say, Well, we can t participate. Do a one-day collection in a neighborhood. Ask the congregation at your house of worship to donate after one weekend s services. Organize a collection at the school that feeds your pack. No matter what you do, DO SOMETHING. There are too many people in our community who need help and many of them are children. Suggestions about food collection ideas are given later in this document. Goal: Our goal for the 2015 Scouting for Food campaign is to collect 500,000 items of food; this equals 25 items per registered Scout. If you have 10 boys in your pack/troop, you should strive to collect 250 items of food. However, if on April 18 th only five participate in the campaign, each boy will should try to collect 50 items each to still achieve the unit goal of 250 items. Donations: Take your donated food to a food bank or food pantry in your area. Metro Omaha food donations can be taken directly to the Food Bank of the Heartland or the following Hy-Vee store locations: 51 st and Center, 180 th and Pacific, 156 th and Maple, 144 th and Stoneybrook or 96 th and Q Street. Siouxland food donations can be taken to the Foodbank of Siouxland. *If you receive monetary donations, the Foodbank would prefer you turn the money into them rather than purchasing food items to donate. The Foodbank can take $1 and purchase 13 pounds of food. Uniforms: Scouts should be in full uniform while passing out door hangers and collecting food. Food Count: Before turning in food, please either have your food weighed by your food bank or count the number of items your pack/troop collected. Reporting: At the end of the food drive, the pack/troop needs to report the amount of food collected whether items or pounds, as well as the number of Scouts, adults, and siblings who helped with the Scouting for Food campaign. This form needs to be turned in no later than April 20th at 5:00 p.m. The paper copy is in the appendix of this packet or you can go online at www.mac-bsa.org/scoutingforfood and report your results online. This is necessary for recognition items and final donations tabulation. Recognition: Scouting for Food patches and unit participation ribbons will be available at the May roundtable for those units that reported their collection numbers. Page 1

Door Hangers Door hangers will be handed out at the March roundtable. These door hangers are to be placed on the doors in your designated area on Saturday, April 11 th. Please remember to not place door hangers on homes that have no solicitation signs. Door hangers CANNOT be placed in mailboxes. Scouts should be in full uniform during the Scouting for Food campaign. If you would like to add a personal touch to each door hanger, please fill free to staple/tape a note or print a sticker/label. Be creative. Examples are at the bottom of this page. We are providing thank you door hangers, again this year. These door hangers are to be placed on the doors of all homes that leave food on their door step on April 18 th. It is our way of saying thank you for their support, plus let them know the food was collected by Scouts. The thank you door hangers will be available for pick-up at April roundtable. Examples of messages on notes: Please help Cub Scout Pack 1 reach its goal of 500 items of food to help needy people in our community. Part of our Scout Oath is to help other people and that s what we re trying to do. Will you please help us? Call our coordinator at 123-555 1212 if we haven t picked up your bag by noon next Saturday. This door hanger was brought to you by Troop 1, sponsored by our neighborhood homeowners association. Please help us make our goal of 500 items of food. All of our food will go to our local food bank, so you ll be helping your neighbors. Thank you! Help our neighborhood Cub Scout Pack 1 from Austin Elementary School collect food for the Foodbank for the Heartland. Our goal is to collect 500 items of food please help us! Please put any donations where we can see them on Saturday morning, April 18 th before 8 am. We ll pick them up! If we miss you, please call our coordinator at 123-555 1212. If you know a boy age 6 10 who s interested in Cub Scouting, please call our Cub leader at 123-555 1313. Thanks for your help! Page 2

Advertise Your Unit s Collection Scouts can be discouraged when they ve worked hard and the donations are underwhelming. You can improve your collections by advertising! Here are some examples, but be creative. Consider what will work for your unit in its Scouting for Food Drive. Church Bulletins/Marquees This is critical if you are collecting food before/after services or placing boxes/baskets to collect food over a week s timeframe. Church newsletters, bulletins, or marquees can give key information. Scout food drive April 11 th -18 th 500 item goal Please Help! Benefits Foodbank of Siouxland School Emails Many schools have news groups such as Yahoo! or Google and would be willing to send out a note to help your food drive. Example: Help boys in your school fight childhood hunger, Cub Scout Pack 101 is participating in the Scouting for Food drive and our goal is to collect 500 items of food. Scouting for Food door hangers will be distributed around the neighborhood on April 11th and food will be collected between 8am and noon on April 18th. If you do not receive a door hanger but would like to contribute, please bring your donation to the school on the 17 th or contact our organizer at 555 1212 or organizer@yourdot.com. Thank you for your help! Neighborhood Newsletter If your unit has been assigned an area with a homeowners association, they may have an email distribution or newsletter in which they would let you advertise your food collection. Check with the HOA early as many have publication dates of more than a month in advance. Many newsletters will let homeowners submit articles with a higher priority than a general notice from our Scout office. Yard Signs If your unit has been assigned an area with a homeowners association, check with the HOA to see if you can create a yard sign(s) to be placed at the neighborhood entrances the week of April 11 th -18 th to remind residents about the food drive. Page 3

Door To Door Collections The Food Bank has told us from experience that going door to door, knocking on the door and asking for a donation yields more food than leaving a door flyer and returning to collect donations at a later date. Be sure that Scouts work in pairs if going door-to-door, that the neighborhood is known, and there is adequate adult supervision (two deep leadership applies, as in all Scouting activities). Be sure to follow safe practices. An example script could be something like this: Hi, we re collecting non perishable food for the Foodbank of Siouxland. Our Cub Scout Pack is hoping to collect 500 pounds of food today. Would you be able to donate anything to help us? The Scout should carry a door flyer with the list of most needed food and to give credibility to their cause. (most needed items are listed on the door hanger) Food Collection Barrels If your unit would like to collect food using food collection barrels, your district coordinator may be able to help get cardboard box barrels from the local food bank for you. You can also use wardrobe sized cardboard boxes from a local U-Haul or moving supply business (they may be willing to donate them). Be sure to identify your collection barrel with information such as the time frame, most needed items and who s doing the food drive. Be creative in ways to draw attention to your barrel. If it s at a church, put a couple of helium balloons on it Sunday morning. Have Scouts stand next to the barrel in their uniforms to draw attention to it. Put additional signs up in neon colored papers with your goals or extra information that you want people to notice. There is an example sign in the appendix. Page 4

Unit Presentations Part of our Scouting for Food program is to educate our youth about hunger in our communities. The Foodbank for the Heartland website (http://www.foodbankheartland.org/) and the Foodbank of Siouxland website (http://siouxlandfoodbank.org/) has a variety of information that can be used in presentations to help get the message across to our Scouts about who is most affected and how many people need their help. One in five children in our service area lives in a food insecure home; Scouting for Food is one of the ways we can help make a difference to those in our community. An effective presentation for Scouts is to try to give them a visual perspective of what you re saying. For example, to illustrate the above statistic have 15 Scouts stand up and separate out three of them indicating that without help, these kids would be hungry. Or, ask them to consider how hungry they were at lunchtime. How hard is it to concentrate on schoolwork or have energy to play at recess? While educating our Scouts about the need for food in our communities, also encourage them that they are living the Scout Oath ( To help other people at all times ) and the Scout Law ( A Scout is Helpful Kind ). Page 5

Unit Celebrations Recognize the efforts of your unit and especially those who ve participated. Celebrate the amount of food you ve collected. Any food that your Scouts have collected will be put to good use to feed families and children in their communities. Your Scouts should feel good about themselves and the help they ve provided. All Scouts participating in the Scouting for Food campaign will receive a Scouting for Food patch. Units will also receive a participation ribbon. Please, be sure to turn in your Unit Scouting for Food Report to ensure your Scouts receive their proper recognition items, by April 20 th at 5pm. Service Hours Don t forget to enter your unit s service hours after you have completed the Scouting for Food campaign. Service hours can be entered at https://servicehours.scouting.org/ui/security/login.aspx or go to the Mid-America Council website, www.mac-bsa.org and click on the Journey to Excellence tab, next click on the community service tab, where in the middle of the page you will see How to Log Your Hours. If you are unfamiliar how to log service hours, please contact Scouter Services at 402.431.9272, for assistance.

MID-AMERICA COUNCIL UNIT SCOUTING FOR FOOD REPORT DISTRICT: ASSIGNED AREA: WHERE FOOD WAS DROPPED OFF: Unit: Pack/Troop/Crew (Circle one) # of Adults # of Scouts # of Siblings & other youth April 11 Door Hanger Distribution April 18 Food Collection Patches Needed # of Items Collected --- --- Amount of any cash --- --- collected Show the number of participants (adults & youth) for each of the days. If the same person helps on both days then they should be counted separately for each day. For the patches column, only list the number of individual patches needed (don t double count individuals who participate both days. NOTE: This form needs to be filled out by each PACK and Troop then given to your DISTRICT Scouting for Food Chairman the same day as the food collection, (MAY SCAN, EMAIL OR PHONE). You can also go online at macbsa.org/scoutingforfood The above information is necessary for recognition and final donation tabulation. If you have further questions or concerns, please contact Erin Glidden at Erin.Glidden@scouting.org or 402.514.3028 (w) 712.490.6096 (c) Due by Monday, April 20 th at 5:00 p.m.

Most needed items include: Peanut butter, macaroni and cheese, canned tuna and chicken, canned fruit and veggies, boxed meals. Collection Date:

Scouting for Food Facts 1 in 5 kids lives in a food insecure home. Think about it. If there are 40 kids in your neighborhood, eight of them don t know where their next meal will come from. There are children in food insecure homes in every community; you just might not know it - even in seemingly affluent neighborhoods. You can help in a big way through ConAgra Foods' Scouting for Food! Commit to helping the hungry in our community. Our goal is to collect 500,000 items of food to benefit our entire service area. The food you collect will directly benefit our local community. It is important to help others. This goal is not just a number. This is helping to feed thousands of families who need it. Some of them are your neighbors. Some of them may be members of your pack or troop. Together, let s help those in need. Food collected through Scouting for Food goes to benefit the Food Bank for the Heartland, Food Bank of Siouxland, the Lincoln Food Bank and other local pantries. How can you help? Scouts will be collecting food in local neighborhoods on April 18. If you receive a door hanger asking for a donation, please leave non-perishable items in a bag on your doorstep to be collected by Scouts by 8:00 a.m. on April 18. At participating Hy-Vee s purchase a $5 or $10 bag of food when you check out. $5 can provide a family of four enough food for a week!