TULSA, Okla. — This week is a week of caring and your chance to give back and help your community starts now.
Tulsa Area United Way is hosting its fourth annual Day of Caring food drive. The food drive runs from now until Friday, but there’s something new happening this year.
For the first time ever, TAUW is doing a virtual food drive. This is in addition to the 11 in-person food drive sites.
President and CEO Alison Anthony said food donations are greatly needed this year. Not just because of inflation impacting families but also because their partner agencies are seeing an increase at the food banks due to the end of snap emergency allotments.
So in an effort to follow the TAUW mission and gain more donors, they have launched a virtual food drive.
The way it works is by clicking on the link on theirwebsite,which takes you to their Amazon registry. There it will show all the foods their partner agencies need. Then, you order just like you would anything else on Amazon, and the rest is taken care of.
“Through the pandemic, so many people got used to ordering groceries online or ordering clothes online," Anthony said. "Well, this is a way for us to take that idea and make sure that people can participate in helping their friends and neighbors have enough to eat.”
She said one in five Oklahoma kids doesn’t have enough food to eat, and one in seven Oklahoma families is food insecure.
Kayleigh Land with Broken Arrow Neighbors, a TAUW partner agency, explains they are giving out more food than they ever have before. So much so food is going out pretty much the next day.
“We are so excited for this new component. We sent in our list of everything we need and what we are low on, and they are able to purchase it online, and they bring it to us. We are hoping we see a way larger donation than we have in the past,” Land said.
Land said if they don’t get as many donations as they need, they will have to use money geared toward other services and programs just to purchase food to feed clients.
So by offering a virtual option, Anthony said they are taking the excuses out of donating since virtually, it only takes a few minutes out of someone's day and can be done wherever they are.
The goal is to surpass last year's donations and get more than 35,000 pounds of food to distribute between Tulsa Area United Ways 11 partner agencies.
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