Crawford’s Auto Repair Annual Holiday Food Drive 2023

The Crawford’s Auto Repair 5th Annual Holiday Food Drive 2023 has begun! Every year we team up with United Food Bank to raise food and funds to help feed the hungry in Arizona. 1 in 10 People, 1 in 7 kids, and 1 in 14 seniors suffer from food insecurity. These are families and neighbors within our community and we are doing our best to help them have a great holiday season. The food drive will run from November 1 to December 15 this year.

We’ve made it super easy to participate with the following options:

1. Donate funds directly to United Food Bank through our team’s fundraising portal. We don’t touch this money and it is processed securely through United Food Bank’s secure checkout. For every $1 donated United Food Bank can provide 5 meals. Their purchasing power is greater than the average individual or family since they have arrangements with local food sources and they buy it in bulk. This is the most efficient way to donate. The option to donate anonymously is available if you don’t want your name posted online and/or you don’t want to receive follow-up promotions. Donate through the secure portal.

2. Join Our Fundraising Team – Once you see our fundraising portal, you’ll notice that you also have the opportunity to join our team. Joining our team means you can be part of the fundraising efforts by sharing the portal on social media and even creating individual goals for funds raised through your efforts. You can join us as an individual, family, organization, or business.

3. Bring non-perishable food to the shop. This is a great way to cycle through non-perishable food items in your pantry and it’s a much-appreciated alternative to fund donations. We will make sure that any food brought to the shop or collected through neighborhood drives will get to United Food Bank and we will report on the grand total of meals provided. See the most needed items below.

4. Participate in neighborhood food drives. We will perform neighborhood food drives in various neighborhoods which involve leaving an empty paper grocery bag on the doorsteps of homes and collecting them back a few days later. If you live in these neighborhoods, filling the bag (or multiple bags) and leaving it on your porch at the designated time would be a convenient way to help. If you choose not to donate, then leaving the empty bag on the porch would also be helpful since we save them for future food drives and they are actually hard to come by.

Most needed items:

• Funds – again for every $1 United Food Bank can provide 5 meals
• Cereals and Oatmeal
• Chilis, Soups, and Stews
• Canned Tuna or Chicken
• Peanut Butter
• Beans
• Canned Vegetables and Fruit
• Canned or Dried Milk
• Canned Tomato Products
• Rice and Pasta

Please no glass jars, baby food or opened food.

Donate Food or Funds In-Store For An Auto Repair Discount

Bring 5 cans or more to the shop, or donate $5 or more through the secure portal, and get a $5 discount on auto repair. $5 may not seem like a lot, but those funds actually equal 25 meals which United Food Bank can provide to the hungry. We made the dollar amounts the same to make it an easy choice. The option to donate anonymously is available if you don’t want your name posted online and/or you don’t want to receive follow-up promotions. It cannot be combined with other offers. Follow us on social media or see our ads elsewhere for additional offers.

Join Us At Our Holiday Food Drive Event on Dec 9, 12-3 pm.

Crawford’s Auto Repair will be hosting a holiday food drive event at our shop on December 9, from 12 noon to 3 pm. Families can get their photo taken with Santa or the Grinch. There will be a raffle with prizes and a hot cocoa bar presented by our sister brand, The Pink Squirrel. See full details of this event.

Special Thank You’s

Special thank you to Safeway on Alma School & Guadalupe for donating 800 paper bags for our neighborhood food drives.

Special thank you to Staples on Germann Rd in Chandler for flyer printing donation.

Special thank you to Basha’s on Gilbert Rd and Chandler Heights Rd for donating 75 paper bags for our neighborhood food drives. (Neighbors may also notice bags from Albertsons or Fry’s which were donated in previous years)

Special thank you to the residents of Monterey Point II, Monterey Vista and Heather Place (Frye Rd Neighbors) for your food and funds donations. One of ya’ll called the cops on us this year. We promise we’re not porch pirates! Overall the neighborhood was very generous and welcoming. One of you even carried a bag to our van while the cops were questioning us. We thank you for your donation and your timing. Chandler PD was also very nice, they gave the kids stickers when they were done. We will try to be more transparent next year on what is going on, though we are not sure what else to do beyong leaving a flyer on every doorstep. Some of you also brought additional bags of food to the shop after we had finished collecting in the neighborhood.

Special thank you to the residents of Marlborough for your food and funds donations.

Special thank you to all our business partners who donated a prize to the food drive raffle – The Pink Squirrel, Cactapaws, Zona Beauty House, Realtor Jean Grimes, Valley Sculpting, Savage Creations, Natural Grocers, and McPea Photography.

Results

Total results from all efforts was 1384 lbs of food collected, $241 in funds donated, for a total of 2,230 meals.