Just heard this one on KLOVE this morning on the way to work...
Leave brown grocery bags (a local grocery store may donate!) at homes with a note attached explaining that your group will be back on a specific date to collect anything they can donate. This would be good to do during a spring break...drop off on a Monday and pick up on a Friday. And even if no bag is outside, knock on the door...they may have forgotten. Great opportunity to encourage their visitation to your church.
Another food drive possibility is to do a scavenger hunt...equip teams with a list of foods for holiday baskets with each food item assigned a different point value. Send them in the community to do cold-call collections. Monetary donations could be accepted and then used to purchase needed food items to complete their list. The goal is to create as many food baskets as possible and a reward could be given to the team with the most points although the greatest reward will be self-fulfilling in what they've done. ;-)
