In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, I began volunteering weekly at the local San Diego Food Bank. With a talk with the branch leader about how to further positively impact the community, I learned that the food bank needed canned meat, dry grains, and peanut butter to help provide nutrients to the families. I decided to partner up with the founder, Nexus Feng, to start a food drive together. In preparation of the food drive, the food drive team posted the flyer on their social media to attract more attention. With the help of my friends at Canyon Crest Academy and Nexus’ friends at Culver Academies in Indiana, the team for the food drive was huge and had many different ways to contribute to the cause.
On March 28th, the first day of the food drive, the team, consisting of Michael Xu, Max Feng, Tony Shen, and me, was split up into 2 groups to be efficient in the food drive. Michael and I advertised the cause in front of Jimbo’s, while Max and Tony collected the canned food received from their online social media advertisements in front of Philz Coffee. During the 2-hour food drive, Michael and I positioned ourselves in front of the busy store and asked customers on their way in if they were interested in donating food to the San Diego Food Bank. Many customers went into the store and bought healthy nutrients, such as canned meat and pasta. Their persuasiveness attracted the donations of many generous people. Meanwhile, Tony and Max helped navigate the patrons to the site, and loaded the food out of their vehicles; they also chatted with the donors before they drove off to continue their day. At the end of the day, I took the food home and counted them to report to the San Diego Food Bank. In the first day alone, the team received 176 items weighing over 300 pounds.
On March 29th, the second day of the food drive, Nexus’ friends Christian, Victor and William were able to contribute to the food drive. With a successful first-day experience, the team split up again into 3 groups. A team went to Jimbo’s, another went to Ralph’s, and another stood at Philz Coffee to collect more donated food from online advertisement. The Ralph team—Tony, Christian, and Victor—gathered donations from people walking by who were generous enough to give cash, or shoppers who were willing to buy canned food. The group developed the idea for Christian and Victor to do pushups for money as an incentive for people to donate. As Christian first began doing pushups, people were hooked with the idea of seeing the boys do 100+ pushups without rest, and money skyrocketed quickly. By the end of the day, the team was able to accumulate $400 cash, which would be spent later on buying more goods. While the boys at Ralph’s were getting food, the team at Jimbo’s were asking people to support the less fortunate families of San Diego by donating canned food when they walk out of the store. At the end of the day, Tony brought the food back to his house and counted it by separating the goods into individualized categories. The food took up half of his garage floor and consisted of 137 cans, 21 juice containers and broths, 4 peanut butter cans, 64 instant noodle packages, 29 noodle packages, and 87 other miscellaneous items.
During the week after the food drive, I came up with a plan to spend the $400 donation received during the food drive. On a trip to Restaurant Depot with another team member, Max Meinert, we were able to find 81 cans of 6 pound B&M Baked Beans cans on sale for just 2 dollars. The team was able to pick up all the cans and deliver them along with the rest of the collected food to the San Diego Food Bank on April 2nd. The end result of the food drive was over 1200 items, which weighed a staggering 1100 pounds.
