Charity Food Drive Overlap Prevention Board Staggers Drop-Off Windows Across County

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Donation Scheduling Coordination Committee has released its annual staggered drop-off calendar, assigning each of the county’s 47 charity food drives a specific 4-hour window in an effort to prevent what the Committee calls “the great canned-goods traffic jam of 2024.”

The Committee was formed after last November’s chaos, when nine separate food drives scheduled drop-offs for the same Saturday morning, resulting in a three-mile backup at the fairgrounds, 400 volunteers with nothing to do, and what one witness described as “a forklift standoff.”

“Generosity needs traffic control,” said Committee Chair Robert Okafor, 52, a logistics manager who now applies supply-chain principles to charity. “Last year we had churches, schools, and a motorcycle club all collecting cans at the same intersection at the same hour. The intentions were beautiful. The gridlock was historic.”

This year’s calendar assigns windows by organization type: churches get Saturday mornings (“they’re already up”), schools get weekday afternoons (“the buses are there anyway”), corporate drives get Friday lunch hours (“captive audience, full parking lots”), and the motorcycle club gets Sunday at dawn (“their choice — they said the sunrise suits the mission”).

The Committee also standardized the accepted-items list after years of confusion. Approved: canned vegetables, canned tuna, peanut butter, rice, pasta, and boxed stuffing mix (“holiday-appropriate and shelf-stable — the perfect donation”). Banned: expired items (“a donation is not a pantry cleanout”), dented cans (“if you wouldn’t eat it, don’t donate it”), and novelty items, following the 2023 incident in which someone donated 60 cans of “chocolate-covered sardines.”

“We are grateful for every donation,” Okafor said carefully. “But the sardines were a cry for help, not a contribution.”

The calendar includes a new “overflow protocol”: if a drop-off site reaches capacity, volunteers deploy orange cones and redirect donors to the next scheduled drive, “like a very wholesome detour.” The Committee has also created a real-time donation dashboard, so donors can see which sites need what — “green means bring cans, red means we’re drowning in creamed corn, please stop.”

Early results are promising: the first weekend of staggered drop-offs processed 12,000 pounds of food with zero traffic incidents and only one minor dispute over parking cones. “Orderly generosity,” Okafor said. “It’s the best kind.”

The real-time donation dashboard, accessible on the Committee’s website, has become what Okafor called “unexpectedly competitive.” “Churches are watching each other’s numbers,” he said. “One congregation saw another pull ahead in canned corn and organized an emergency Sunday collection. This is the kind of rivalry we can get behind.” The motorcycle club, for its part, delivered 2,000 pounds of food at dawn on Sunday, “in formation, engines off, extremely respectful,” per the Committee’s incident-free report.