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Boxes Ready to Ship Participating in Family-to-Family requires a small commitment of time and money.

You can choose from two ways to sponsor “your” family:

Option One: Direct Monthly Food Shipments — Once a month you shop for a week’s worth of non-perishable dinner-type foods usong our suggested shopping lists.

You can include a supplemental “monthly drive” item as well – a non-food necessity like winter gloves, over-the-counter cold medicines or shampoo.

After shopping, all groceries are family packed in a sturdy carton. Boxes ready to ship are delivered to a central drop-off point, typically the home of the Chapter Chair, by the specified drop-off date each month.

Your package, last touched by your family's hands, is then opened only by members of the family you're sponsoring.

In each Family-to-Family community, an individual – a member of the clergy, an outreach worker, etc. – helps F-to-F by providing local insights, developing menus and receiving packages.

The F-to-F team coordinates shipments from all Chapters to ensure that boxes arrive at receiving communities on a pre-arranged day, where they are distributed - unopened - to receiving families.

Option Two: Local Grocery Purchase — Instead of doing the shopping for your sponsored family yourself, you send Family-to-Family a check each month for $35, and Family-to-Family uses your $35 to buy groceries for “your” family from a local grocery store in the receiving community.

In some communities, depending on the recommendation of the local outreach worker, receiving families will be given a gift certificate for their local grocery store (good for groceries only), so they can do their own shopping.

With this option, F-to-F donating families shop for only one item a month – a “monthly drive” item, such as warm gloves, over-the-counter cold medicine, or toothbrushes (click here for this month’s monthly drive). They drop off the monthly drive item, along with a letter to “their” family and the $35 check, to a central location (usually the Chapter Chair’s home). The Chapter Chair then packs everyone’s purchases and letters in a box and ships them to the receiving community.

"Your" family receives your monthly drive item at the same time as the locally purchased groceries you have paid for.