Day of Caring Food Drive

Every June, the parent company of WANE 15 celebrates the founding of the company with a "Day of Caring," where each station in the group is charged with giving back to the community in a meaningful way. In 2021, I arranged for the station to partner with the Community Harvest Food Bank for a food drive. They provided the pallets and truck, and I planned the station execution - from the marketing campaign asking viewers to bring food to our parking lot (as well as what kind of food we would accept), handling the logistics of arranging volunteers and providing for staff needs, to the signage for the dropoff area and pick up of full pallets. I also arranged some larger, pre-planned donations from some key station clients with the help of our sales team that would arrive strategically during live coverage in our newscasts. I was reminded just how powerful TV can be when we collected over 10,000 lbs. of food that first year, in just one day. We created the "thank you" proof of brand spot, and were truly humbled by the generosity of Northeast Indiana. In 2022, we partnered with Community Harvest again, and donated even more food than the year before. We even had an employee food drive where WANE staff donated nearly 2000 lbs. of food to the food bank. It's a lot of work, but it's one of the most rewarding events I've been involved with.