Four years ago we sat at the dinner table with our kids and talked about what a blessing it was to have food on our table.  Our son asked us how we were able to have food while others had none and we told them that we were blessed with our successful business to support our family.  When our son, who was four at the time, asked why we didn’t use our business to help give other people food too, our annual Jason Angelini Photography food drive began.

Through the three previous food drives we’ve had we’ve been able to donate over 2500 food items to our local food pantry!  Each year so far we’ve collected more than the previous year and we’d like to continue that trend and help to feed as many people as we can this holiday season.  One in six people in America struggles with hunger.  In 2011 Florida had one of the highest rates of food insecurity with over 16% of households falling in the category of food insecure.  Here in the Tampa Bay area there are more than 200,000 children who live in food insecure households.

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”  –Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl, 1952

Starting right now you can send in your bids for  the number of non-perishable food items you would like to donate to win a free holiday mini session!  We will have six time slots open on November 17th for a holiday themed mini session with a disc of images.  Last year’s winners had such cute pictures to use on their Christmas cards!  This year we decided to give away more than just the sessions.  The largest donation will also receive their choice of two large, beautiful frames.  One frame fits an 18×24 print (frame is 28×34) and the other frame fits a 16×20 print (frame is 30×34).  The second largest donation will get the remaining frame.

Email us with your highest bid for how many non-perishable food items you would like to donate to win one of these mini session time slots and possibly one of the frames as well!  The email should be sent to jasonangelini@aol.com and the subject line should be “Bid for Food Drive.”  We have a minimum bid of 75 food items so keep that in mind when sending in your bid.  We will be accepting bids until midnight on Sunday, November 11th.

The food items must be non-perishable goods in cans, boxes, or plastic jars.  Please do not count any packets, bags, or pouches as part of your bid.  Also the food pantry cannot accept glass jars.  Soup cans, canned vegetables or fruits, plastic jars of peanut butter, cereal boxes, pasta, and rice are great items.  You could even donate a holiday dinner with canned cranberry sauce, a box of stuffing, a box of instant mashed potatoes, and a gift card for a turkey.  We will also accept Publix gift cards for those of you who don’t have time to shop or for those of you who live out of town and want to win a session as a gift for a family here in Florida.  Every $1 on a Publix gift card counts as one food item for your bid.  If you donate a Publix gift card for $100, that would count as a bid of 100 food items.

The mini session can be any type of session including maternity, babies, kids, or even your pet!  However only one family can be included in a session and the bids must be made PER CHILD for every child who will be in the session.  For example, a family session with a mom, dad, and two kids could bid 100 food items per child.  That would make their total bid 200.  Please keep the minimum bid of 75 items in mind!  That means you must bid at least 75 items for each child who will be included in the session!

The six highest bids received by midnight on November 11th will win!  We will announce the winners here on the blog on Monday, November 12th.  We will then contact the winners via email to choose their time slots in the order of the number of food items donated (the most food gets first choice and so on).  All sessions will be on Saturday, November 17th and the winners will bring their donations with them on that day.

The session and disc are completely free to the winners but if any prints or other products are ordered from these sessions we will donate all of the profits from those orders to Feeding America, a hunger relief charity.

TO SUMMARIZE:

-Bids are accepted by emailing Jasonangelini@aol.com from now until midnight on September 11th.

-Bids are for non-perishable food items in cans, boxes, or plastic jars or for Publix gift cards with each dollar counted as one food item.

-Only one family can be included in the session and bids must be made PER CHILD who will be in the session.

-There is a minimum bid of 75 food items PER CHILD.

-Winners will be announced on Monday, November 12th.

-The 6 highest bids will win a free holiday themed mini session with disc to be held on November 17th and donations must be dropped off at the session that day.

-In addition, the highest bid will choose from one of two frames and the remaining frame will go to the second highest bid.

So send in your bids now to win a session of beautiful images to use on your holiday cards while doing some good for your community as well!

Our local food pantry has more and more people all the time who rely on food donations to feed their families.  Even if you can’t make it to a session on the 17th, you can still come by another day to drop off a donation (or mail in a gift card) and be part of our food drive.  We are asking all of our wonderful clients, our family, and our friends to get involved and donate some food items for our food drive!  Every donation helps, no matter how small.  With the loving hearts and generosity of all of you we can help our community and make this year’s food drive a big success!