Reverse Advent Calendar for Your Local Food Bank

Every year around the second week of December, our food bank warehouse fills with cardboard boxes that people have decorated with wrapping paper and taped shut. Inside each one are 24 items, collected one a day through Advent. They are lovely to receive. They are also, about a third of the time, the hardest donations we handle all year, because they arrive in the same ten days, sealed, and packed with whatever was on offer at the till.

A reverse advent calendar is a good idea that works much better with a bit of planning. I coordinate volunteers on weekday evenings, and my day job is in logistics, so I tend to look at these boxes the way I look at an inbound pallet: what is in it, when does it land, and how many hands does it take to get it onto a shelf. Here is what makes one useful, from the side of the people unpacking it.

Why timing matters more than what you put in

Food banks in the UK see their biggest wave of donations between late November and Christmas Eve. Supermarket collection points, school harvest drives that run late, office hampers and reverse advent boxes all land in the same few weeks. Our store room, which holds around four tonnes when it is tidy, was over capacity by 19 December last year.

Then January arrives. Collections dry up almost overnight, heating bills land, and the number of referrals we get usually climbs. Last year our January referrals were up by roughly 14 percent on December, while donations in by weight fell by more than half. By mid February we were short on tinned meat and long-life milk.

So the single most useful change you can make costs nothing: deliver your box in January. Fill it through Advent exactly as you planned, then drop it off in the second or third week of the new year. The food is the same. The difference is that it fills an empty shelf instead of joining a queue.

The counter-take: do not wrap it up

A lot of reverse advent guides suggest decorating the box and sealing it, so it feels like a present. I understand why. It makes the habit feel special, and children enjoy it.

From the warehouse floor, a sealed box means a volunteer has to cut it open, check every date, sort each item onto a different shelf, and then deal with the wrapping paper, which cannot go in our cardboard recycling. On a busy evening I have six volunteers and around 40 boxes to get through. Taped and wrapped boxes take about twice as long as open ones.

If you want it to feel like a gift, decorate a card and tape it to the outside. Leave the box open, or folded shut without tape. Your volunteers will quietly thank you.

What to put in it, and what to leave out

Ask your local food bank first. Most publish a shopping list on their website or on a sign at the drop-off point, and the list changes. Ours moves every few weeks depending on what is running low. If you cannot find one, the table below is roughly what we ask for in winter, based on what actually goes out in our parcels.

Pasta and beans are not bad gifts. We just have a lot of them. If the box is a family project, let children pick the treats, like a small chocolate bar or a packet of biscuits, and have an adult pick the staples from the left column. A Christmas pudding is welcome if it says alcohol free on the label, and many do not, so check.

Size matters too. A 400 gram tin goes into one parcel. A 3 kilogram bag of rice has to be split, which we are not allowed to do for food safety reasons, so it either goes to a large family or sits. Smaller packs are almost always more useful.

A rough cost, and a cheaper version

When I priced our winter list at a big supermarket last month, 24 items from the left column came to about 38 pounds, buying own brand where possible. That is a little under 1.60 pounds a day. Toiletries push it up fastest. A two-pack of razors or a bottle of shampoo can be more than two tins of fish.

If that is more than you want to spend, a half calendar works fine. Put in one item every other day and you have 12 items for about 19 pounds. If you would rather give money, most food banks take cash and can buy exactly what they need at wholesale prices. The reasoning behind cash versus goods is covered in what food bank shelves really need, and if you are deciding how often to give, monthly gifts versus one a year walks through the trade-off.

Running one at work or school

Group calendars produce the most food and the most chaos. A school in our area ran one per class last year, which meant 17 boxes arriving on the same Friday afternoon in the back of one teacher's car.

Three things make a group one easier to receive. Pick one person to phone the food bank and book a drop-off slot. Agree a list in advance, ideally a short one with six or seven item types, so the boxes are not all pasta. And weigh the total before you bring it, even roughly on bathroom scales, because we log incoming weight and it saves us a step.

If you are starting a calendar this year, the one task for this week is simple: find your nearest food bank's current shopping list and print it, or save a photo of it on your phone. Then shop from it through December, and drop the box off after New Year. More ideas for regular, low-effort giving are in our giving section.

FAQ

When should I start a reverse advent calendar?

Start on 1 December, like a normal calendar. If you want the food on shelves when it is most needed, deliver it in mid January rather than before Christmas.

Can I include fresh food?

No. Most food banks only accept long-life items because they have no fridge space and parcels may sit for days before collection.

Do food banks accept toiletries in these boxes?

Yes, and they are often the most welcome items. Deodorant, toothpaste, shampoo and sanitary products are rarely donated and always needed.

Is it better to give the money instead?

Cash goes further because food banks buy at bulk prices, but a well chosen box of goods still helps. Do whichever you will actually keep doing.