Guest Blog Post from The Produce Box
Donations from your doorstep!
Last month, The Produce Box kicked off a “Doorstep Donations” food collection campaign. We asked our members in the Triangle area to leave donations on their front porches for the month. Then we stopped by to pick up the items and transport them to Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, a 501c3 nonprofit based in Raleigh and member of the national network of Feeding America Food Banks.
In September alone, IFFS received more 490 pounds of food through the Doorstep Donations program—that’s a big jump from 315 donations they received in July!
What doe 490 pounds of food mean? About 400 well-balanced meals for children from food-insecure homes throughout the Triangle.
According to the IFFS, all food received through the Doorstep Donations program goes to IFFS’ child hunger programs:
BackPack Buddies provides nearly 2,700 children from food-insecure homes with 10 to 12 pounds of healthy weekend meals for use outside of school.
School Pantries supplies 25 local school pantries with fresh fruit and produce, meats, shelf-stable food and snacks for over 2,000 people per month. The program serves students and their families in Wake, Durham, Edgecomb and Johnston counties.
IFFS Food Drive Coordinator Laura Clay says the organization relies on food drives such as Doorstep Donations to stock and sustain these programs.
“We are thrilled to be working with The Produce Box for the Doorstep Donations program,” she adds. “The Inter-Faith Food Shuttle pioneers innovative and transformative solutions to fight hunger in our communities. We feed, we teach, and we grow, connecting families to nutritious food and helping them develop skills for self-sufficiency.”
The Produce Box’s members are a unique fit for programs like Doorstep Donations. With a collective passion for healthy living and community engagement, our member base aligns well with the mission of the program.
“I can tell that Produce Box clients are very health-conscious,” Clay said. “We received many great donations such as tuna fish, canned fruits and vegetables, and oatmeal. Healthy donations are so important to us—we want to nourish our area’s children, not just feed them empty calories.”
We at The Produce Box are proud to partner with organizations like the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle to serve our local community, and we’re happy to have our customers join in this task.