Food Donation - $100 to spend - How to get the most out of my money?

[zabet17]

My Grade 7 students had a really great presentation this week from the executive director of a local food/clothing/furniture bank. The kids were really interested and I decided to ask them to each bring in a dollar and I would go out and, with the help of coupons, buy as much food as I can to donate.

One boy came in the very next morning with a $20 bill and said, this is from my family. I could have cried!

So we should have at LEAST $100 by the time we finish collecting. I want to get the best bang for my buck, so I am looking for your advice.

Where can I get the best deals this week? (I would like to try and keep it to one store - maybe two). The biggest stores we have are Sobeys, Superstore and Wal Mart.

What are the best items to buy this week? Are there any Freebies (or close to freebies) for those stores this week?

[ame555]

The food basics flyer looks great for that sort of stuff - pasta is 2/99 cents, canned chick peas are the same price etc - The flyers posted somewhere
What a wonderful idea! Good Luck!

[mellyskater]

try to price match at zellers, esp. if you or a family member have an SPC card, you will get an extra 10% off!

[zabet17]

Thanks for the suggestions. We don't have a Food Basics and the Zellers here has a pretty limited food section so I really have to stick to either Wal Mart, Sobeys or Superstore.

[meta42]

Given those three choices I would go to Walmart and bring the flyers for Superstore and Sobey's so that you can price match the sale from their stores.

[itsjustmebub]

what a nice thing to do best wishes!!

[tray]

What an amazing exercise for the kids! Let us know how it goes.

[jojos_n_kelowna]

Aww that brought a tear to my eyes too! How sweet of your students.

Maybe call your local food back and ask them what they are in need of...they would be the best to tell you! They accept more than just food items. Could be they are low on diapers? laudry detergent? toilet paper? toothpaste, toothbrushes, you get the point. Some food banks will take frozen food items too if you deliver the items directly to them, like pizza pops, pogos, waffles, veggies, etc. Think of things that the kids receiving the food would like to eat. There's always an overabundace of canned foods, or pasta/rice etc as they always have lots of those.

I awesome idea to stretch your dollars, which I read on another SC'ers post that she bought 27 or so boxes of the cereals with the $10 worth of coupons on the back. What she did was keep the cereal box sealed and the cereal bag inside sealed, and just cut out the coupons from the back. This way you could also use these coupons to buy more for the food bank. Check with your local food bank first on all these suggestions because each one is different. However this other SCer said her Food bank would accept the cereal if the bag was factory sealed.

Good luck and thanks to you and your students for being so caring and generous!

[coolgirl]

great thing to do...good luck....
also as others suggest...go to Walmart and take other flyers and price match.... then use the coupons.

[miniv]

ya, i'd call and ask what they are in need of..then post it here and we can all help in determining whats at a good price and which coupons to use!

[rhiannon1891]

Just wanted to say congrats to your class for such an awesome good deed!

[Tripsplanner]

PM me with your address and I will throw a few coupons to help stretch your $$$. I'll mail it express!