OVFO food drive in 2021. Photo courtesy of OVFO

ORANGEVALE, CA (MPG) - The Orangevale Fair Oaks Food Bank is calling all neighborhood heroes to reach out, fill a bag and bring a collection of food to the Second Annual Spring Community Food Drive on March 9, hosted at the food bank from 9am to 12 noon.

Last year’s community collaboration focused on community organizations and churches collecting food in house with their membership.  This year there’s a twist.  The food bank is calling all residents not just to bring food, but to unite themselves – neighborhood by neighborhood- in mini neighborhood food collection drives.  Maybe only ten neighbors at a time, each filing a bag.  Ten by ten the bags add up to hundreds, and soon the food bank shelves fill.

Foodbank volunteers have made it easy to get involved.  Download a neighborhood flyer and print enough for your immediate neighbors.  Distribute the flyers to your neighbors, inviting them to fill a bag and leave it on their porch for you to pick up at the time and date you indicate on the flyer.  Then, the first week of March, pick up the bags and deliver your trunkful of neighborhood donations to the food bank on March 9th.

One delivery last year really stood out, inspiring this year’s approach. Two truckloads of small grocery bags sporting brightly colored flyers showed up, all invitations accepted by neighbors of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints near Deseret Ave in Fair Oaks.

“It was incredible. It was exciting,” says Patsy McGavock, the volunteer inspired by the event to begin promoting neighborhood led drives. “I read the flyers to see what it was all about. How had they collected so much?”  She learned that the church had followed a Boys Scouts of America model of neighborhood collection – and it had worked.

“What I learned is that while not all can give much, many can give a little – and lots of little bits add up to so much,” says McGavock.  But it takes someone to start it, just a few people willing to ask their neighbors.  “And it multiplies.  Multiplies!  The evidence was in those trucks,” McGavock concludes.  “Amazing!”

To get involved in this year’s excitement, download neighborhood flyers at www.ovfofb.org/post/spring-community-food-drive-march-9th, bring donations on your own, or even volunteer on March 9th helping unload vehicles and sort food from 8:30am-11am or 10:45am -1pm.

The OVFO Food bank specifically asks for cereal, peanut butter, pasta sauce and dried pasta, but will accept any non-perishable food items and monetary donations.

2nd Annual SPRING Community Drive Through Food Drive

-Sat March 9 at the Orangevale Fair Oaks Food Bank

-Food collection from 9:00 a.m. to 12 noon

-Inviting neighbors to organize neighborhood collections