CEREAL DRIVE FAQ
Organize a Cereal4all Drive
to Feed Families in Need
Breakfast food is one of the least donated items to food banks
Families that depend on food banks for hunger relief often receive no breakfast for their homes
But you can help your local food bank fill empty bowls
🎖️Community Service Hours for Student Organizers
🍀Gift Card for Schools, Clubs & Teams
👩🏽🎓Become a Student Ambassador at our nonprofit
❤️Receive online recognition of your drive
🥣Cereal Party for top-donating K-5 classrooms
• We’ll help you identify and communicate with your local food bank
• Your cereal drive must be approved by your school or organization
• Your drive must collect 100 or more boxes of cereal to receive a gift card
• Current gift card is $50 from our partner Target
- It’s a food drive focused only on cereal, like Cheerios or Instant Oatmeal
- People donate unopened boxes of cereal at their school, youth group, or business
- When the drive is complete, all the cereal is donated to a local food bank
- We’ll help you identify a food bank near you if you don’t already have one in mind
- School clubs, youth groups, teams, scout troops, sororities & fraternities, or any group that wants to fight hunger
- Your drive must be approved by your school or organization
- Breakfast food is one of the least donated items to food banks, which means families who depend on food banks for hunger relief often receive no breakfast for their homes
- We focus on cereal because it’s non-perishable and can provide whole grains and essential vitamins & minerals lacking in many at-risk households
- Since most students love cereal, a Cereal4all Drive helps them think about the happiness and hunger needs of others in a more personal way, which gets them more invested in the fight against hunger
- Also, cereal is about breakfast, but it’s also about happiness—two things the world can use more of!
- The cereal you collect will be donated to a local food bank, which will distribute the cereal to families struggling with food insecurity and hunger
- Food insecurity means not having daily access to enough meals to feed everyone in a household
- Over 44 million Americans, including 13 million children, live in food-insecure homes. A majority of them depend on food banks for relief.
- We encourage you to research hunger statistics for your own city or county. You may be surprised by how many people in your community suffer from serious hunger issues.
➛You organized a cereal drive that raised awareness about hunger issues in your community
➛Your drive collected more than 100 boxes of cereal (9oz or more) for donation to a local food bank
➛You dropped off your cereal donation at the food bank and followed the food bank’s dropoff rules
➛You provided Cereal4all with contact info for the teacher, counselor, or supervisor of your drive
➛You took the requested photos during your drive (See photo question below)
- During your drive, we ask that you take fun photos of:
➛Groups of students donating cereal during the drive
➛Group shot of your club or organization with your total collection of cereal
➛If you’re dropping off your collection at a food bank, get photos of that too - We’ll post your photos online to inspire other students across America to follow your example and get involved in the fight against hunger
- Work with other students to strategize the best way to organize, run, and promote the drive
- Can you spark your school’s compassion so everyone feels the importance of filling empty bowls?
- Use flyers, posters, & social media to spread the word. How creative can you get?
➛We can help you create a flyer. Just ask. Click here for some examples - Some schools offer students a perk if they donate boxes of cereal, like a Pajama Day or Sports Jersey Day
- Other schools offer students community service hours for donating cereal. A popular formula is: 3 boxes of regular-sized cereal = 1 service hour, with a max of 5-10 hours.
- If your school’s administration promotes the cereal drive too, that always helps
- At K-12 schools, a drive takes place over 1 or 2 weeks
- Universities usually do 2 or 3 weeks
- Other groups can choose what’s best for them
- K-5 students usually donate in homeroom (to keep track of the top-donating classroom, which gets a cereal party from Cereal4all)
- Middle & High Schools often donate in a single location, like a media center
- Universities should pick a familiar spot on campus, like a student union
- We can help you figure out the best way of getting your cereal collection to the food bank
- Most students prefer to drop off the cereal themselves at the food bank to see their donation processed and get meaningful photos (for yearbook, social media, and Cereal4all)
- Depending on your area, some food banks will come to you for a pickup
- Since Cereal4all is a 501c3 nonprofit, we can certify Community Service Hours
- If necessary, make sure your school accepts Cereal4all as a service organization. We’re listed on nonprofit verification websites like Candid, and with the IRS too. Our EIN is 88-3360884.
- Cereal4all is also an official certifying organization for the President’s Volunteer Service Award
- Community Service Hours are for the time you spend on all aspects of organizing and executing the cereal drive—from the first strategy session to the final food bank donation. Keep track of the time you spend. Write it down with dates and what aspect of the drive you were working on. We have a lot of experience organizing drives, so we know the hard work it takes.
- Students who organize a successful drive can become an Ambassador at Cereal4all
- Your name will be listed on the Our Team page of our website
- To be eligible, a student must have initiated contact with Cereal4all and taken on the most responsibility for organizing the drive
- In certain cases, we’ll consider a second student from the same school
- The first 30 schools, clubs, or troops to hold drives in 2023-2024 get a gift card from one of our partners
- Currently, it’s a $50 Target Gift Card to use for whatever supplies your school or organization needs most
- Only drives that collect 100 or more regular-sized boxes of cereal (9oz or more) receive a gift card
- The more boxes you collect, the more entries you get in a spring drawing for a bonus $100 card
- You must take the necessary photos during your drive to receive a gift card
- For all K-5 schools, Cereal4all will also provide $20 for milk, bowls, and spoons for the top-donating classroom to have a cereal party
- You should hold back 5-7 boxes of cereal from your drive’s collection for the party
- If your school would rather not do a cereal party, it can use the $20 toward anything else your school needs
- Part of Cereal4all’s mission is to get younger students thinking about helping others through volunteering. Some great activities for them are:
➛Make posters for the cereal drive to hang up around school
➛Create uplifting cards for the food bank to include with food distributions
➛Decorate the pantry bags the food bank uses to distribute food
➛Have classroom discussions about hunger problems in America and possible solutions
➛Take part in collecting the cereal boxes from classrooms. Students can count the boxes on tally charts and bring the cereal to a main location, like the cafeteria stage (where it’s fun to creatively stack the cereal and take photos:)