Week 3 - Rescued Critters Food Drive

Hi Folks,

Miles always steps up … quickly

This was the third Sunday the Miles Neighborhood donated food, dollars and stuff to the Pima Animal Care Center. Let's start with the stuff first. To date, we have donated a large black cage, two large quilts, many, many chew toys and even a pack of pet diapers. Cans and $128.71 in cash combined to create a hefty 174.8 lbs. of pet food.

Folks are really getting behind our Miles Rescued Critters

Food Drive. Check out the canned and dry food,

dollars and coins and fun toys and chews.

(Click on photo to enlarge.)

Currently, participants only involve three blocks: East Miles between Vine and Santa Rita, and E. 12^th Street between Highland Avenue and Santa Rita. That means there are 15 more blocks to go so we can look forward to lots and lots of generosity.

This week’s numbers: $30.71 in cash and 12.8 lbs. in food. 

Walking Billboard

The reasoning behind Rescued Critters Food Drive is to do a little once a week. When neighbors

(Click to enlarge.)

say, “I forgot, catch you next week,” I point to my new ad on my T-shirt. The next sentence spoken is, “Yeah, sure, I can do a dollar.”

On my first Sunday’s rounds I told my prospective participants that PACC has a lot of buying-power so they can purchase a pound of pet food for $0.90. We pay around $4.50 to $5.00 a pound.  Although they were not prepared to donate yet, many reached into their pockets.

Getting More Neighbors Involved 

in Community Service

Front side of the Rescued Critters Fact Sheet
(Click on photo to enlarge.)

Years ago, my first venture into community service, One Can A Week, was picked up nationally by neighborhoods and the press around the country. I’m hoping for a similar reaction to Rescued Critters Food Drive. With that in mind, I created a post that fully explains the simplicity of the program.

 If you have friends around the city or country, send them this link.  

How to Build Your Own Neighborhood Rescued Critters Food Drive in 8 Easy-to-Follow Steps

Maybe the will like the idea and run with it. Won’t that make a lot of critters happy and healthy! Thanks.










See you next Sunday,

Peter

How to Build Your Own Neighborhood Rescued Critters Food Drive in 8 Easy-to-Follow Steps

In the first few week you will be able to use a shopping bag to tote the donations. After a few weeks you'll need easy access to a car or truck to collect the donations.

Welcome.

Step One: Build your community while collecting donations for the Pima Animal Care Center. Rescued Critters Food Drive is a weekly food donation “collection” program where you visit your neighbors on Sunday between the hours of 11:30 am and 5 pm to collect food and donations for rescued pets.

SPECIAL NOTE: When told the Rescued Critters Food Drive process of knocking on doors, many people think the idea is wonderful, but they want their neighbors to do the work and drop the food off at their house or the local library. A few have even sent around flyers to their neighbors and got some response, but nothing happened beyond the second week. This is America and you can do anything you want.

If you are truly looking to be successful with your Rescued Critters Food Drive and want the respect and admiration of your neighbors, please go to Step Two.

Step Two: Think customer service. Each one of your neighbors is your customer. You ask them to participate in your personal community service program by donating pet food, pet supplies and cash/checks each Sunday. In return, you promise to help them perform their community service by stopping by their homes to pick up their donations for delivery to the Pima Animal Care Center. It’s a fine bargain and everyone wins. The value added is you and your neighbors are building your neighborhood back into a functioning, cohesive community.

Step Three: There are 6 collateral material pieces to help you manage the program. 


Fact Sheet – This is a flyer that contains a brief explanation of your personal community service program and the need for pet food and pet supplies for the Pima Animal Care Center. It also lists contact information for both you and the Pima Animal Care Center.

Front Page of Flyer. Click to view larger.

Back Page of Flyer. Click to view larger.

Sign Up Sheet – It is best to just write down first names only, the house address and an email address if possible. People are somewhat resistant to giving out personal information so take as little as possible.

Just ask for first name, address and email address. Click to view larger.

Thank You Card – Every time you pick up a donation you leave a Thank You Card to tell your neighbor you were the one who took the donation. Hand the Thank You Card to your neighbor if he or she gives you the donation personally. This activity creates a bond. When the donation is present outside the home, place the Thank You Card first before picking up the donation. If you don’t follow this order, you will often forget to leave the Thank You Card in the excitement of picking up the donation.

Give your participant one Thank You Card with each donation. Click to view larger.

Sorry We Missed You Card – This card is left if there is no one home and there is no donation on the porch. It is very important to leave this card because the next week you will probably receive twice the normal donation. Guilt is wonderful...sometimes and this is one of those times.

Give your participant one Sorry Card when he or she missed a donation. Click to view larger.

Business Card – As your program expands and you are willing to speak to other community groups about Rescued Critters Food Drive, you will need a business card.

Print on home computer on glossy photo paper and hand trim.Click to view larger.

Quarterly Report - Besides being your customers, your neighbors are your investors, too, and they want to see a return on their Rescued Critters Food Drive investment just as they expect to see a return on their financial investments. This report will help keep your neighbors committed to your personal community service project.

Quarterly Report to be handed to all participants. Click to view larger.

Step Four: Customize your Rescued Critters Food Drive collateral material.
Please contact pnorback@cox.net to receive Word Documents. When they arrive, open each to add your name and contact information. If you are not familiar with the Draw feature in Word, find someone who knows Word and is available to give you a quick lesson. Within a few minutes you will be able to make all of the changes easily.

Print 15 or so Fact Sheets on a color printer. The Fact Sheet is actually 8 ½” x 5 ½” and double sided. It is suggested you use a heavier, 8 ½” x 11” stock, say 28 lb., to print the document and cut it in half. Make sure when you print the second side, the paper is put back in the printer properly so the print will be right side up on the back page.. Cut the printed pages in half.

Print 6 – 8 pages of the Thank You Card. You can use scissors to cut up these cards or a small paper cutter. Since Rescued Critters Food Drive is a long-term program it may be wise to invest in a paper cutter.

Print 4 – 5 pages of the Sorry I Missed You Card. Use the paper cutter on these, too.

Print 2 copies of the Weekly Food Drive Sign Up Sheet form. Print more when needed. Also, a clipboard will come in handy when filling out this form on a neighbor’s porch.

Step Five: Call on your neighbors.
This is a slow growth program. Plan on visiting 10 or so new neighbors each Sunday. In other words, visit 10 the first Sunday. Visit those 10 the next Sunday plus 10 new neighbors and so on. It may take you 8 or more Sundays to get around your whole neighborhood. If you are methodical in your approach to Rescued Critters Food Drive, you won’t burn out trying to do things all at once. In addition, your neighbors will be impressed with how you are sticking to the program and that you are a person of your word.

On your first Sunday there is no need to be nervous because you should only call on neighbors you know best. They are going to be very receptive to your personal community service program.

Walk to the neighbor’s front door. Ring the bell or knock and then step back a few paces. This is especially important for neighbors you don’t know. With you standing far away from the door, they won’t hesitate to
open it.

Tell them you are a neighbor and state your address. If you walk your dog in the neighborhood be sure to have a picture of your dog on your clipboard and tell your neighbor you are the one who walks this dog, pointing to the picture. In most cases they will recognize the dog and smile.

Now tell them you are collecting donations for the Pima Animal Care Center. It is your personal community service program and it is in response to the great need of the Pima Animal Care Center. Hand them the flyer and explain the process. They leave a donation on their porch which you will pick up. At the same time, you will leave the Thank You Card to tell them you are the one who took the donation. Then ask, “Would you like to participate?” Do not use the word commit. That’s too strong.

Take their first name only and the house address. Tell them you are going to communicate with them weekly by email and you would like their email address if they don’t mind. You will get more email address after you pass out the first quarterly report on how much pet food and supplies the neighborhood donated.

Step Six: When the donation is not on the porch.
Many neighbors will participate but they will forget to put out the donation or they don’t feel like putting the donation on the porch. Just knock on the door and say hello. Only a few will tell you that they haven’t gone to the market this week, etc. Be super friendly and say you will be back next Sunday. Most of the time they have their donation ready the next Sunday, because they don’t want to look bad in the eyes of a super friendly person who is trying to do some good.

Step Seven: Communicate … Communicate … Communicate. As stated above, besides being your customers, your neighbors are also your investors. They are donating and they want to know what happens to that donation and how that donation affects the Rescued Critters Food Drive program. The more they are kept in the loop, the longer they will participate in your Rescued Critters Food Drive.

Before or after photographing the weekly donations, weigh the food.

Show a photo of each Sunday's collection in your blog. Or just keep a photo record of your participants donations. Click to view larger.

A digital scale will help, but in the beginning, you can use the weight listed on the packages. You will fill out a Pima Animal Care Center In-Kind Donation Form when you deliver your donation. You may ask for copies of this form to fill out at home. This saves time when delivering your weekly donation.

Ask for copies of the In-Kind donation form at your first donation drop off. It will be easier to make out this form at home. Click to view larger.

The photos of the donation will be used weekly in the emails to your neighbors in addition to the weekly collection tallies. It is suggested you visit RescuedCrittersFoodDrive.blogspot.com and review weeks 1 – 7. Initially these posts start out as emails first and then are turned into blog copy. You can do the same.

Step Eight: The all-important quarterly report.
A template for the quarterly report is also available to you. All you have to do is insert your own collection figures. Each quarter you should provide a printed copy of this report to each of your participating neighbors. They will appreciate receiving the report and learning how their investment in Rescued Critters Food Drive is performing. Also, this report is a very important communications tool for those who don’t have email.

Rescued Critters Food Drive is a very simple community service program that not only collects food and supplies for rescued pets but helps foster good citizenship and neighborhood involvement.

Have Fun and Good Luck!

Peter

Contact:

Peter G. Norback

(520) 248-3694

pnorback@cox.net

Week 2 - Rescued Critters Food Drive

Hi Folks,

Why Rescued Critters Food Drive

Works for Me and My Neighbors

See the cat food cans waiting on the edge of the chair and the Thank You Note stuck in the door? That’s why.

Kelly was busy last week when I started our new Miles Neighborhood pet food donation program, but her friend, who was in the front yard, was willing to listen to my spiel. He soaked it all in and said he would tell Kelly. Obviously, he did tell her because her donation was waiting for me this past Sunday.

When I walked up the sidewalk to her porch and saw the cans, an old feeling from those One Can A Week days came over me. A rush of the Oxytocin bonding hormone for sure.

Kelly and I are a team as I am with all of my participating neighbors. She puts out the donation knowing I will pick it up Sunday and help her do something positive for the Pima Animal Care Center. On my side of the commitment, I always smile when I see a donation waiting for me. Both of us personally get a lot out of those two cans of cat food. And it happens every week like clockwork. My drive is to help folks help and folks appreciate how my simple act of pick-up and delivery connects them and their small donation directly to an organization they really admire week after week after week.  

This Week’s Donation, Expert-approved

Moments after I set up this week’s donations to shoot, both Haley (left) and Cody moved in to check

it out. Guess it was the BarkBox pig’s ear that captured their attention, not the stack of canned cat food.

Many of my participants were otherwise occupied this Sunday but we still gathered more food than last week. The total was 10.3 lbs. and $22.00 in cash. With respect to participants, I signed up 8 more neighbors so I look forward to hefting a lot more cans this coming Sunday.

A $1 donation makes a big difference

over a little bit of time

My neighbor Tony, at the end of Miles, latched on to my point about Pima Animal Care Center’s purchasing power. He gave another dollar this Sunday. It is a small donation and there is some self-consciousness about it which I sense. So, I told him that he is feeding a lot of little dogs with his donation. After a slight pause I added, “Or one big dog.”

We both laughed and so did others who heard the story. My point is a dollar turns into a big thing if, say 75 people in the neighborhood joined Tony. In one year, that would be $3,900 or 4,333 lbs. (2.2 tons) of dog food. That will feed lots of big dogs.

Today I ordered a T-shirt with the above graphic on it which will remind folks that even a dollar is a very big donation in the long run. So there really is no reason to be shy about donating a dollar every week. We wish we had 75 more like Tony. 

See you next Sunday.

Peter

Week 1 - Rescued Critters Food Drive

Hi Folks,

First, the Really Good News

Sunday was the beginning of a new era of collecting pet food and pet stuff for the Pima Animal Care Center in the Miles Neighborhood. I was excited about getting back to community service and it turns out everyone I talked to was just as energized.

The cash donations amounted to $76.00 and the food weighed in at 8 lbs. There were chew toys and even a large dog crate. 

Diane, my next-door neighbor, suggested the crate and after a moment of thought I said yes. I can give anything pet related to the Pima Animal Care Center, it doesn’t have to be just food. So, everything pet is what I am thinking now. Thanks, Diane.

Kicked off with more cash – On average, One Can A Week generated $54.00 weekly over the seven years. Rescued Critters Food Drive got a major jump on that with $76.00. 

This is the header for the new Rescued Critters Food Drive blog. The address is: RescuedCrittersFoodDrive.blogspot.com.

Over the next few weeks the site will be under construction with new information appearing daily. If you have suggestions, please don’t hesitate to make them.

The beautiful Pima Animal Care Center campus at 4000 N. Silverbell Road. It is only 8 miles away, so you and your family should plan an outing to check out all of the rescued dogs, cats and rabbits and stroll the inviting grounds. Dogs on leads are everywhere accompanied by staff and volunteers. Yes … inviting is the right word. 

As I said, dogs are everywhere which creates a unique and incredibly calming work environment. I find it exhilarating and very motivating. Oh, and to my right is our highly informed contact, Field Sergeant Bennett Simonsen. (520) 724-5580 or Bennett.Simonsen@pima.gov. He is quite busy but always gets back to you.  

See you Sunday,

Peter