Hunger in New Mexico

With more than 20% of New Mexico’s population (28% of children) living in poverty, many people including thousands of children are at risk of being hungry every single day.  Food Drives enable the Food Bank to provide a wide variety of high quality, nutritious  food items throughout the year - especially during the winter and summer months.

On a daily basis, Roadrunner Food Bank provides enough food for 66,000 meals – 26,000 to hungry children, 7,200 to hungry seniors, and 26,000 to the working poor.  But we need to do a lot more if we are to reach the one out of six New Mexicans who cannot always put enough food on the table for themselves and their families.

Steps for Success

Set your goal early:  Determine the number of pounds you want to raise before you start. You might think about your goal in terms of a certain number of pounds per person.  Report your progress to everyone regularly.

Kick-Off Party:  Bring your employees or neighbors together for a kick-off party to announce goals, incentives and other food drive details.

Educate Your Donors:  We live in a poor state.  New Mexico has one of the highest rates of poverty in the nation.  With food stamp rolls declining, more people are seeking help from emergency feeding programs.  The Food Bank can provide you with hunger facts or a speaker for your educational efforts.

Double Last Year’s Collection:  If you hosted a food drive last year as a company or group, set your goal to double last year’s collection. 

Involve Everyone:  During our community wide food drives, we recruit over 600 volunteers to help manage public collection sites and sort the food that is donated.  You can “adopt” a post office for the annual Letter Carriers' "Stamp Out Hunger" food drive.

Provide Incentives and Fun Promotions: The following ideas will provide some fun ways to raise food and provide incentives for everyone to participate in your food drive.  You will raise more food when you are specific with ideas, needs, themes, and dates.  Think about what will work in your situation.

Cans for Coins:  Set up collection cans for coins in reception areas or department lobbies.  Encourage people to drop pocket change as they pass.  At the end of the week, designate someone to take the money to the Food Bank.  Since Roadrunner credits groups with three pounds of food for every dollar donated, you’ll be surprised how many more pounds of food are added to your food drive. 

Weekly drawing/prize:  Each time people bring in a bag full of food, give them a ticket for a drawing,  The more food they bring in, the more opportunity for them to win.

Veggie Day:  Designate days of the week for specific foods.  For instance, Monday encourage corn, Tuesday encourage peas.

Take Home Brown Bag:  Provide a brown bag for people to take home.  Attach a flyer with specific instructions about what you want them to do.  Position a designated person to distribute the bags to everyone.  This could work particularly well over a weekend when people are more likely to forget to bring food.

Casual Day:  In exchange for a contribution of food, allow your employees to come to work dressed casually (or some other incentive).

Contests:  Challenge departments, groups, or teams to outdo each other.  Provide a pizza party, ice cream, doughnuts or free time off for the winners.