1 Thanksgiving Food Drive: Utah Food Bank

Strategic Communications Plan: Initial Submission

Team D
Sabrina Distad, Stacy Owens, Tyler Dorius and Brennan Walker
November 8, 2017
Buss 2200
Lon Schiffbauer
2 Thanksgiving Food Drive: Utah Food Bank

Thanksgiving Food Drive: Utah Food Bank

We have decided to start a food drive that would benefit the Utah Food Bank in one of the most
needed times of year. By choosing to do a service-learning project we hope to help bridge the
gap for families who would not have the means to celebrate a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. In
Utah we are ranked the 7th lowest poverty level in the nation. Despite our descent standing in
regards to other states, still, 10.2% of people fell below poverty level based on a 2016 study of a
family of four. That is more than one in ten families of four that do not make more than $24,340
a year. Additionally, we are ranked 4th for the poverty level of children under the age of 18, at a
percentage of 10.8% in our community.

(https://talkpoverty.org/state-year-report/utah-2017-report).

Our food drive will help families celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday without the added stress of
where the food will come from.

Purpose/Objective

Our purpose is to spread awareness of the level of need in Utah for our food banks all year long
and highlight how just one group can make a difference in our community. Our campaign is
aimed at students and faculty at Salt Lake Community College during the weeks leading up to
Thanksgiving. We will spread the word using various media channels such as Facebook,
Instagram, posters throughout campus and announcements at home games. Our objective is to
communicate effectively so our week long food drive will bring in food to donate to the Utah
Food Bank.

Learning objectives

Our project directly relates to the class syllabus by helping us develop the knowledge and skills
to work with others in a professional and constructive manner, by allowing us to think creatively
and critically, allowing us to communicate effectively, and helping us develop the knowledge
and skills to be a community engaged learner and scholar.
3 Thanksgiving Food Drive: Utah Food Bank

Audience analysis

Our audience is Salt Lake Community College students and professors at the Taylorsville
Campus. We want to highlight the need in our community for the basic necessity of food
especially around the holidays where extra meals are served.

Salt Lake Community College has over 60,000 student enrolled across all campuses and online.
Our College has a very wide range in the demographic with students of all ages from concurrent
enrollment to the workforce returning to school. We are trying to reach as many students and
faculty with our online posts and announcements are the sporting events that will take place
during our food drive. (http://www.slcc.edu/about/index.aspx)

Messaging goals

We want to show that we can work together as a group to uplift others lives through this service
learning project. We want to appeal to our other fellow students and faculty at Salt Lake
Community College, friends and family to help us by donating their extra food to help our cause.

Think

We understand the need for food in our community

As a team we have set goals to start our campaign off in the right direction. Such as
obtaining permission through the college for a food drive and registering said food drive
with The Utah Food bank.
Our team has separated goals among team members in an effort to be more effective.
4 Thanksgiving Food Drive: Utah Food Bank

Feel

We feel this experience is good for our group to see a need in our community and take
the initiative to help fill this need.
Our hope is our peers will help us fill the shelves of The Utah Food bank and all families
will have a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. We understand this is a year round issue in
our state but would like to highlight the need at Thanksgiving.

Do

Donations from the community are key to our project. We considered which media
channels to use to get maximum participation in our community. The community college
gave us a place to collect food, the food bank gives us good hands to give our collected
food to.

Media Channels

Posters around the school for our donations bin. We have found out we can only post
donation posters in certain locations around campus. We will begin hanging them on the
20th of November.
Facebook posts to appeal to our family members and friends
Instagram posts for people to be aware as well
We will contact Tiffany Sleth about getting word out on the overhead monitors in the
Business building. Televisions are out due to a change in companies that run the media.
I am going to get in contact with the guys who run the scoreboard at the games and see if
they can announce our food drive or put it on a screen. Taylor Munroe has gotten
5 Thanksgiving Food Drive: Utah Food Bank

permission for our announcements, we will create a script for the announcements and use
the same media from our bin for the monitors during announcements

Budget

At this time, we do not see any expenses for ourselves except maybe gas money to and from the
school to set up our donation bin and to and from the food bank. Posters will be provided by The
Utah Food Bank. We did end up with some expenses in printing the additional information
poster.

Tactical Plan

Who What How When

Lon Schiffbauer -Food drive -Donation bins November 6
And For Utah food bank -Fill out request forms
Carlos Fortun with Food bank and
SLCC

SLCC students, -Food drive -Place donation bin November 13-20

faculty and home For Utah food bank -Hang posters
game attendees & -Talk to game
Taylor Munroe announcers.
SLCC students, -Utah Food Bank -Pick up food from bin November 21
faculty and Utah and deliver to food
food Bank bank.
6 Thanksgiving Food Drive: Utah Food Bank

Our plan for getting food from the students at the school starts with us setting posters around the
school for people to be aware of our donation bin. We will then to put our donations bin out for 6
days in the student center. We requested to have the bins from November 13 thru November 20,
this was approved but only on weekdays.

With Facebook and Instagram, we are planning to point those people either towards our bin at
the student center or just direct them to the food bank itself whichever is easier for them.

Mission Statement of the not-for-profit organization

Utah Food Bank: Fighting Hunger Statewide

Founded in 1904, Utah Food Bank has operated under various names but has always remained
true to our mission of Fighting Hunger Statewide. 392,000 Utahans, which equates to 1 in 8
Utahans, are at risk of missing a meal today. Even more alarming is that 1 in 6 Utah kids are
unsure where their next meal is coming from. With your support last year, we distributed 38.1
million pounds of food, the equivalent of 31.8 million meals, to people facing hunger across the
state. https://www.utahfoodbank.org

To spread awareness of world hunger, to involve the community and give them a chance
to help those in need, and to receive credit for our group project.
Describe the sustainability of your project for the not-for-profit organization.

Our project will help families provide a great family meal this Thanksgiving. It will also bring
more awareness to the need of food in our community.

We will be using a provided bin from the student center at Salt Lake Community College.
We have allotted time to set up on SLCC Campus from November 13-20, 2017. We will
create posters to advertise the event and post on selected media channels.
7 Thanksgiving Food Drive: Utah Food Bank

Community-identified needs

Getting more food to families in need, especially during thanksgiving.

Donating more to the food bank to help those in need.

Debrief

Our expectations were exceeded. The large donation bin was full of donations. We did
not expect such a success. We posted on our Instagram pages and on our Facebook pages. We
suppose the man in charge of the scoreboard at the game displayed our advertisement picture we
sent him and made an announcement. Our fliers were hung around campus. People showed up.

This project didnt go as smooth as we expected it to turn out despite our excellent media
channels. There were a few conflicts. One being the Student services taking away our bin
because we needed to include adequate information on the side of the bin that we did not prepare
originally. Our group worked together to create new posters and get them printed out in the
correct 11x17 sizing to be placed on our bin to get in back in business (or should I say, Back in
Binsness?). We had the head of student service check our bin to double-check that it was
sufficient enough to continue our progress.

Our group also had a little bit of competition going on. Salt Lake Community College
was also holding a food drive in the same period we were having ours. Salt Lake Community
College had fliers all over campus and could keep their collection bins out over the weekends.
They also had multiple collection bins in multiple locations.

When we tried to advertise our project in the Business Building, but the monitors were
shut off because SLCCs Business Building was in the process of switching companies that ran
the overhead monitor system. They were unable to put our groups advertisement on display
throughout the building.

Despite our conflicts and challenges, our group filled our collection bin and feel
accomplished that we had such a good turnout. We worked together to help those in need.
8 Thanksgiving Food Drive: Utah Food Bank

We ended up donating 72 pounds of food to the Utah Food Bank on November 21, 2017
9 Thanksgiving Food Drive: Utah Food Bank

Citations:

Utah Food Bank https://www.utahfoodbank.org

Center for American Progress. 2017. Talk Poverty.org https://talkpoverty.org/state-year-

report/utah-2017-report

Salt Lake Community College http://www.slcc.edu/about/index.aspx