Basics | Budget | Shopping List

Participating in Family-to-Family requires a small commitment of time and money. Donors can choose from three ways to sponsor a family. Here’s how the program works:

In each Family-to-Family sponsored community, an individual in a local aid organization – an outreach worker, a member of the clergy, etc. – helps F-to-F by identifying families in need, providing local insights, purchasing groceries with donated funds and receiving & distributing packages.

Using names and profiles of families provided to us by these outreach workers, Family-to-Family links individual donors or groups of donor families (chapters) one-to-one with the families that need help.

Option One: Cyber-Sponsorship — Sign up on the F-to-F website to sponsor a family in need with a monthly credit card donation.

First choose a community you’d like to help from our list of sponsored communities, sign up with a credit or debit card through our link to PayPal, and we will assign you a family from that community, as well as email you information about them. Your monthly donation of $31.10 will purchase either 7 meals worth of groceries for “your” family every month, or $30 in food-only coupons for them to use at a local grocery store.

You also have the option of sending your sponsored family (via your local post office) a monthly drive item (a non-food necessity like winter gloves, toothpaste or shampoo). Another option…Join our One Book At A Time program by sending a child in your sponsored family one gently used children’s book from your home each month, promoting literacy and helping the family build their own mini home library.

We encourage donating and sponsored families to communicate with each other either by exchanging letters or through email. In our sponsored communities with email capability, you can email “your” family at the outreach center where they pick up their food or grocery coupons, and they will email you back from there.

Option Two: Direct Monthly Food Purchase — Once a month you shop for a week’s worth of non-perishable dinner-type foods for “your” family using 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.

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. (Learn how to start a chapter of donating families.)

Option Three: Local Grocery Purchase — Similar to our cyber-sponsorship program, you and the other members of your donating chapter send F-to-F a check each month for $35, and we use your donation to buy groceries for “your” family from a local grocery store in their community.

In certain places receiving families will be given a gift certificate for their local grocery store (good for food items only), so they can do their own shopping.

In addition, you shop for one item each month – the “monthly drive” item, (e.g. warm gloves, cold medicines, or toothbrushes). You drop off the monthly drive item (along with a letter to “your” family and the $35 check) in a zip-lock bag with your sponsored family’s name on it, 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 letter and your monthly drive item along with the locally purchased groceries your donation has paid for.