2025 Jingle & Jive Food Drive
Each year, the Independent Education Program runs a food drive competition among our students to help care for those in need. All over the state, students collect and deliver food donations for their local food pantry. At the end of competition, we celebrate at the annual Jingle & Jive Dance.
Food Drive Details
The 2025 IEProgram Food Drive starts Monday, December 1, and runs through Friday, December 19. The Food Drive is an annual tradition that brings thousands of pounds of food, supplies, and money to local Food Banks each year. We hope everyone will participate and get involved!
What to Do
- Gather food and/or money for your local Food Bank. Work on it any way you choose - host a food drive, email your friends and family, set out a donation box - whatever you can think up!
- Food Banks are often able to stretch the money farther and they welcome donations. Any money you collect and donate is counted as $0.20 = 1 pound. You can create your own Fundraiser page for the Utah Food Bank here: https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/UtahFoodBank2021. Donations made through your page will go directly to the food bank.
- Go to it! The Food Drive lasts 3 weeks, but you can only work on it up to 10 of those days. You can't spend all your time collecting food or money.
- When you finish your Food Drive, weigh your donation and count your money donations using guidelines in the FAQ's for adjusted pounds.
- Report your totals in class or by filling out this form: https://forms.gle/MEDksrzyuP8VmGbP8.
- Take a picture and send to admin@ieprogram.org (not required, but we’d love to see your pictures.)
- Take your donations to your local Food Bank. You can find instructions and locations with a Google search.
- Come celebrate at the Jingle and Jive! Friday, December 19 from 7:00-10:00pm at East High School (840 South 1300 East). Everyone who gathered at least 100 pounds of food or the equivalent in monetary donations gets in free! Or make a $20 donation to the Utah Food Bank at the door.
Food Drive FAQ
Can I gather food all day, every day during the food drive?
No. Even though the food drive lasts for 3 weeks, you are only allowed to work on it for 10 of those days.
How do I count and report my food bank donation numbers?
1. Weigh your entire donation (including the special items). Sometimes you can do this at the food bank.
2. Add or subtract based on the following:
- 12-15 oz can of Meat (not Tuna)- Add 3 pounds
- 12 oz can of Albacore Tuna- Add 1.5 pounds
- 12 oz can of Chunk Light Tuna- Add 1 pound
- 5 oz can of Albacore Tuna- Add .5 pounds
- 20 oz Peanut Butter- Add 1 pound
- 40 oz Peanut Butter- Add 2 pounds
- 60 oz Peanut butter- Add 3 pounds
- 7 Diapers- Add 1 Pound
- 5 standard sized bottles of bottled water (or same size of soda)- Minus 2 pounds
- Cash donations should be counted as $.20 = 1 pound (twenty cents equals 1 pound)
3. Report both the non adjusted pounds and the adjusted pounds on the donation form.
Class Competition and Jingle & Jive
Besides benefitting your local Food Bank, the Food Drive is a fun competition between students and classes. Classes compete for total donations based on food/money gathered divided by the number of students in the class. That means any class can win! A class won’t automatically win because they are bigger.
Individual student totals will count toward only one class. If a student is enrolled in more than one class, their donation will be added to their class with the highest pounds per student.
There will be winners in many categories this year including:
- Overall Biggest Donation by Class
- Biggest Donation by Elite/Advanced Class
- Biggest Donation by Intermediate Class
- Biggest Donation by Beginning Class
- Biggest Individual Effort
And everyone wins because we’ll be celebrating with the Food Drive Jingle & Jive – Dance and Games on Friday, December 19 from 7:00-10:00 at East High School (840 South 1300 East) in Salt Lake. Everyone who participated in the Food Drive and gathered at least 100 pounds of food or monetary dontations will get in free. If you did not participate, you can still come and make a $20 donation to the Food Drive at the door.
Jingle & Jive Dance
The Jingle & Jive dance is jam-packed with loads of fun! Filled with plenty of line dances, slow songs, Christmas music, celebration, and light refreshments. Even if dancing isn't really your thing, we'll have games in the hallway and a great social environment. You're bound to have a great time!
Dance Details
- Date: Friday, December 19th
- Time: 7:00-10:00pm
- Address: East High School - 840 S 1300th E, Salt Lake City, UT 84102
- Cost: $20/ticket (or free, if you donated 100lbs of food to the food bank)
- Who's invited: All youth 12+
- Date: Friday, December 19th
- Time: 7:00-10:00pm
- Address: 840 S 1300th E, Salt Lake City, UT 84102
- Cost: $20/ticket (or free, if you donated 100lbs of food to the food bank)
- Who's invited: All youth ages 12+
Goals and Activities
This year, we want to see just how much we can collect and donate to local food banks. So we're trying something new. We'll be setting donation goals that, if met, will unlock activities for us to do at the dance. The more we donate, the more fun we'll have.
Returning this year is Teacher Karaoke! This year, if you want your teacher to sing in teacher karaoke, you can now make on official request. Let us know what you want your teacher to sing by filling out the form below:
Keep an eye out for more information to come as we formalize the benchmarks and more activities. Coming soon!