Health First Network's Live Healthy, Give Healthy Community Food Drive Initiative

For a number of years Health First Network had been organizing events or special offers to raise money for a few select charities of choice. One element that was missing from these initiatives was community engagement - all funds raised were going outside of the community. To increase the local impact of any fundraising efforts, Health First partnered with Food Bank Canada’s Every Plate Full Campaign to activate local Health First Member stores as drop off locations for the campaign. This partnership was the first of its kind for the Every Plate Full campaign.

Each participating store received collateral marketing materials to promote their store as a drop-off location, and a PR agency was engaged to help spread the word, both locally and nationally. Marketing materials focused on the need for healthy foods to be donated and paired perfectly with the goods already being sold at Health First locations. While some stores are specifically focused on supplements and do not sell many food products, these stores created $5 or $10 “healthy food packages” that could be purchased at the till and donated directly to the cause.

A simple website was developed to highlight key foods needed, participating locations, and content around nutrition and eating well on a budget.  

Overall the program was very successful with 58 stores participating, and 50,000 meals donated