February is a very special month indeed! It is a month full of Valentines love, heart awareness and black history. With all of these fun things going on in one month, can you believe there is even more events to celebrate? (GASP!) Yep, that’s right February is also National Canned Food Month!

This month is a great time to volunteer without straying from your hectic daily schedule. Donating canned foods can be a lot easier than you think and can actually help a great deal of people.

How exactly can you incorporate this service idea into your schedule? Check out our tips below to get inspired to feed those in your community!

1. Partner up: Ask your local grocery store about placing a canned food donation bin in the store, so that customers can donate to the cause. It is an easy way to attract donations because people will just pick up an extra can during their shopping trip. Hand out flyers to shoppers so that they understand your cause and the people that their donation will be helping.
2. Make it a food collection competition: Compete with friends, neighbors, classmates, or family members to see who can collect the most food. You can design a scoreboard and who ever collects the most cans, wins the prize!
3. Host a movie night: Invite your community to watch a movie such as a documentary about hunger in America. The price of admission into the movie is a canned good! You will get great discussion and help your community members understand the impact that their donation will make.
4. Host a casual Friday: Ask your boss if your company or organization can join in on the canned good fun. If a majority of employees bring in a canned good, all employees will be rewarded with a casual attire day.
5. Make your next event a donation opportunity:Whether your kids have a big sporting event, or you are hosting a
   party encourage attendees to bring cans instead of gifts.
6. Raffle:Make your canned donation an event. Ask local companies whether they would be interested in donating a gift to
   your cause. Whoever donates a can, gets a chance to win an awesome prize!
7. Get your kids’ teachers involved: Ask your principle if you can get the school involved in the donation. Have the teachers do something for the amount of cans donated. For example, if every student donates a can, the class gets a longer recess.
8. Make it a theme: Put a theme around your donation cause. For example, Tomato Tuesday every person must donate a canned good that contains tomatoes. More people will donate if they have a little twist added to the mix.
9. Ask your neighbors: Kill two volunteer birds with one stone. Offer to do something nice for someone in your neighborhood such as clean their house, mow their lawn, rake leaves, or shovel snow in exchange for canned goods.

Canned food donations are an easy way to truly help your community members who may be in need. Food banks and soup kitchens often run low on supplies after the holidays, and your decision to donate canned goods will change that fact.

We hope that these ideas help make your canned food celebration both meaningful and fun. Are you donating canned goods this February? We would love for you to share your stories in the comment section below!

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