Society Of St. Andrew Needs Your Help Hosting Potato Drops In May!
Society of St. Andrew needs help with bagging and distributing 150 tractor-trailer loads (approximately 6 million pounds) of donated sweet potatoes during the next 3 weeks. We are very excited about this opportunity to feed the hungry in our communities, but this quantity far exceeds our current budget and distribution channels! We hope to partner with church groups and community organizations to do Potato Drops across the Carolinas.
Please review the time, space, and resource requirements listed below. If you can meet the requirements independently or in partnership with other churches and organizations, contact Anna MacDonald Dobbs at 919-683-3011 or: sosanc@endhunger.org to coordinate a Potato Drop.
- Your location must be an open, flat space large enough to accommodate the 18-wheeler, your volunteer work force, and the coming and going of agency vehicles.
- It takes 100 or more volunteers 4-5 hours to bag a 40,000-pound truckload of potatoes. Additional time is needed to oversee distribution and cleanup. Local grocery stores may be able to donate bags and boxes.
- Society of St. Andrew can help you coordinate with food banks, pantries, soup kitchens, shelters and other hunger-relief agencies to distribute bagged potatoes.
- You will need volunteers with trucks to deliver to agencies that cannot pick up the potatoes. A pickup truck can hold 800-1,000 pounds.
- Potato Drop sponsors are asked to help with the cost of freight, which is based on mileage (typically $1000 or less). The value of the donated sweet potatoes is $14,000-15,000 per load!
- Please keep in mind that Society of St. Andrew receives potatoes because they are not in perfect condition and there will be waste. You will need to have a way to dispose of the bad potatoeseither a dumpster or a truck to haul them to a dump or livestock farm.
Please let us know if you would like to participate in a Potato Drop and cannot meet all of the requirements. We may be able to coordinate multiple groups to distribute large loads in your area. Thank you for your responding to our need and the needs in your community!