Organizations are “ditching the cans,” and hosting virtual food drives in lieu of traditional canned food donation events. Forget the heavy lifting. Food Bank of Iowa makes it easy and accessible for your organization to add to our food inventory without a trip to the food bank and it’s just a click away.

A virtual food drive is a web-based tool allowing individuals and organizations to host a drive which generates the cash equivalent of food items. Participants shop online, selecting items from a specifically designed shopping list. Rather than purchase the actual product, they donate the cash equivalent to Food Bank of Iowa.

Money raised from virtual food drives is used to purchase a variety of much-needed inventory items at wholesale prices.

Let’s do the math. Food Bank of Iowa recently purchased 40,000 — 14.5 oz cans of Del Monte green beans. Including freight, we paid $0.35 per can. Currently, one local grocery store offers the same product for $0.98 per can. By donating cash and allowing the Food Bank to make the purchase, you nearly triple your impact. TRIPLE.

Your virtual food drive will ensure we have more of our most needed food items on hand. You can do this anywhere in the state and by hosting a virtual food drive, you avoid the effort typically devoted to a physical food drive. Nobody has to box, load, and deliver the items to Food Bank of Iowa.

“Virtual food drives are a useful community tool,” said Michaela Devaney, volunteer training and development manager at Food Bank of Iowa. “Our supporters have the opportunity to leverage our huge buying power when they donate. With so much grocery shopping already happening online, we wanted to be sure we offered the same experience at Food Bank of Iowa.”