Donate-a-Crate FAQs: A Fresh Way to Boost Your Office Giving

Since 2009, generous FruitGuys clients have fed more than 1 million people in need through The FruitGuys’ Donate-a-Crate program. Every client is invited to participate, so if your office has never “fruited it forward” before, it’s not too late to join the movement! 

What is The FruitGuys’ Donate-a-Crate Program?

The FruitGuys delivers thousands of boxes of fresh fruit and snacks to offices around the country. Most of our clients have recurring deliveries, meaning they get a box (or more) every week. But sometimes they need to close their offices for the holidays, or they don’t need as much fruit for the week because a large portion of their staff is traveling. Sound familiar? 

That’s where the Donate-a-Crate program comes in. Instead of skipping your delivery on those closed or light weeks, you can donate it to a local hunger relief organization. We’ll deliver your order directly to them and your fruit and snacks will feed folks in need. In 2023 alone, our amazing clients fed 40,972 people through the Donate-a-Crate program. 

FAQs About Donate-a-Crate

To help you understand all the details about The FruitGuys’ Donate-a-Crate program, we sat down with FruitGuys Head of Impact Sheila Cassani and asked her some of the most common questions we get from our clients.

1. My company wants to use Donate-a-Crate for an upcoming week. How do we let The FruitGuys know? 

Please email customer service at info@fruitguys.com, call them at 1-877-FRUIT-ME (877-378-4863), or fill out this form to let us know which week(s) you’d like to fruit it forward and where you’d like to send your delivery. 

2. Where did the idea for Donate-a-Crate come from? 

“The FruitGuys has always had an initiative to relieve hunger. Every week, we give back through direct donations of excess fruit and leftover snacks to local partners near our regional hubs,” Sheila explained. “But we wanted to do more, and in 2009, our team had this ‘aha’ moment.” 

Creating the Donate-a-Crate program helped us get even more food into the hands of those in need, and our clients love using the program to make an even greater impact on their communities. 

3. When my company uses Donate-a-Crate, where does our food go? 

It’s up to you! “You can select a local hunger relief partner from our list of local partners, or, if there’s a specific charity you’d like to support, you can let us know and our customer care team will try to reach out to them and make it happen,” Sheila said. 

If you’re not sure which option to choose, we recommend supporting one of the partners on our list. When you do that, you’re effectively teaming up with other FruitGuys customers, and your collective donations will have an even bigger impact. 

4. Do we have to donate to only one charity at a time or can we rotate donations?

If you get multiple boxes in your FruitGuys delivery, you can split them up to support more than one hunger relief organization. You can also support different organizations week to week. For example, if your San Francisco office wants to donate a box to Family House during Thanksgiving, then switch to supporting St. Anthony’s for Christmas, we can do that.

5. My company gets more than one box in our FruitGuys delivery. Can we donate just part of our delivery through Donate-a-Crate, or do we need to donate the whole thing?

“You can Donate-a-Crate with just part of your order. For example, if your company gets two large Harvest Mixes, you can donate one and keep the other,” Sheila said. Just let customer service know exactly how you’d like to split up your donation.

6. Can my company use Donate-a-Crate year-round, or is it only for the holidays?

“Donate-a-Crate is an option any time! If your staff takes a summer break, for example, that’s a great time of year to forward your delivery on and make a difference,” Sheila said. 

7. When do most offices use the Donate-a-Crate program throughout the year?

The holiday season is the most popular time to Donate-a-Crate (think Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s). But we’ve also had clients forward their deliveries for a week or two in the summer or near major travel holidays like Memorial Day or Labor Day. 

“It’s a great way to ensure your fresh produce doesn’t go to waste and instead goes to people in need,” Sheila said. 

You can even set up a recurring donation year-round alongside your office’s order. During the peak of COVID-19 and even after, many generous clients took that step and became Hunger Relief Heroes.

8. Do I need to have a recurring order with The FruitGuys to participate in Donate-a-Crate?

Nope! You can send a box to one of our hunger relief partners even if you don’t have an upcoming delivery scheduled. Simply pick which organization you want to support and which FruitGuys box you’d like to send and reach out to customer service with the details.

That’s a wrap on our FAQs! If you have a question we didn’t answer, feel free to email customer service at info@fruitguys.com, call them at 1-877-FRUIT-ME (877-378-4863), or fill out this form. And remember, if you’d like to fruit it forward, they can help you with that, too.