Beans with beans…

Your food pantry will be happy to receive donations no matter what, though it can be helpful when items are sorted by category—beans, soup, pasta, etc. Get a group of camper volunteers to sort the goods. While this is going on or as a follow-up activity, discuss the food drive, how to read food labels, the challenge of hunger, and some reasons behind food insecurity.

1.2 pounds = 1 meal

Gather a group of campers to count how many items were donated. What’s the best way to go about that? Have a scale handy and ask campers to figure out how to weigh the goods. Ask campers to calculate the meals that have been donated based on weight. Sorting, counting, weighing, calculating etc. makes for a natural way to incorporate hard skills (ex: math, reading) and soft skills (ex: critical thinking, collaboration) into a fun camp activity.

Deliver in person

If delivering the goods to your food pantry, invite campers to load your van, go to the food pantry, and help unload. Ask a rep from the food pantry to speak about their program and who they serve. Can these campers share that information with your larger camp community?

Invite food pantry rep for a meal

If your food pantry comes to pick up the goods, ask campers to help load the vehicle. Invite the food pantry representatives to a meal in your dining hall and have them give a quick overview of their program and whom they serve to your entire camp community. 

Share the statistics with camp

Report your statistics to your camp community. Ask campers to raise a hand if they brought a donation, raise a hand if they brought “one for every year they’ve attended camp,” and offer guesses as to how many items were donated before you reveal the stats. This builds participation for next year!

Volunteer opportunities

Ask your food pantry if they have opportunities for campers to volunteer on site as a community service project. 

Leadership opportunities

CITs and/or your older campers could take this on as their project, from start to finish. For camps with overlapping sessions [thus, multiple food drives], ask veteran campers to serve as greeters to receive donations from incoming campers and parents.

What ideas do you have to further engage your campers? Please share them with us!