Regency Cigar Collects 7,600 Pounds Food For Food Bank

Regency Cigar Emporium is serious about its holiday food drive. So serious in fact that in just one week, they collected nearly 8,000 pound of food for the Rhode Island Food Bank. 8,000. 

So, how does a small business collect such a colossal amount of food so quickly? By making it fun and adding some friendly competition. 

When one customer brought in 600 jars of pasta sauce, another customer brought in 600 pound of organic whole wheat pasta. More than one customer brought in hundreds of canned goods at a time. And there was the anonymous $1,000 donation. 

"They took this on as a project for them to do with their customers," said the R.I. Food Bank's Cindy Elder of Regency. "We were just completely blown away by the experience. These folks were really a model of how to conduct a food drive."

Regency had so much food in their shop, their next door neighbor, Security Cleansers, ended up helping to store some of the donations. When it came time to deliver the food, there was so much, the food bank said it would send a truck but Regency gave the food bank a check to offset the transportation costs.

"It was not only thoughtful but really understanding of how we operate," said Elder. "We were so impressed by what they did."

"It shows what a single organization can do when they really put their heart and soul into it, and their head. They thought it through completely," she said.

Elder said demand for food in Rhode Island is still high. "We wish we could report the need had gone down," she said.

"We are currently serving 68,000 people in Rhode Island monthly through our network of meal sites and food pantries," she said. "One in three is a child."

If you are interested in how to run an effective drive, you can find out more on the R.I. Food Bank's website here.