Step 1 – Select your Group of Recipients and Target Area(s)
- Select recipients that you feel will appreciate your gesture a lot. Food cups are most appreciated by laborers currently on their duty
- Decide on one or multiple target areas where you find enough recipients, keep in mind that larger areas require more time for distribution.
Step 2 – Select the Number and Type of Items you want to give away
- Rice cups with home-cooked meal is the best choice for giving away food cups, make sure it’s something many hard-workers would enjoy
- Check the pricing per bowl and ingredient, if you buy larger amounts you might want to organize a deal with local eateries. Decide on a number that you feel comfortable to afford.
- Consider the size and total weight of the items (larger numbers can sum up to a higher total weight very fast), you still have to transport and distribute them
Step 3 – Plan a Setup and Flow of Distribution
- There are two parts of the distribution: Transportation and Handover
- Transportation: Do you want to use a vehicle? Can you do it alone or do you need help? Can you load everything at once or need to go back inbetween to load more items? Do you for example need cooling so the food won’t spoil?
- Handover: How will you find the recipient? How will you approach him/her? Will you say something before or afterwards?
- Consider surprising the laborers before they take their lunch break, usually at noon
- If you have to record the handover, don’t hold the camera straight into your recipients face or even ask them to pose. Recipients will not feel good about receiving your gift if they are just used for your video.
Step 4 – Buy and prepare all Materials required for your Plan
- Organize all materials so you can prepare and pack the finalized cups as efficient as possible
- It’s often nice to add a message to your gift, even if they are just printed out on paper and taped onto the cup. People will wonder why you gave them a food cup randomly, tell them what you want them to know, as short as possible.
- Bundle finalized cups into ecobags or similar so they can be stored and later loaded easier
Step 5 – Organize help for Distribution if necessary
- Especially when giving away many food cups, you might need a vehicle and potentially even a driver or rider that helps you while you give the cups to the recipients
- Make sure the vehicle is able to support the total size and weight
Step 6 – Do the Distribution
- If your plan was detailed enough, most will work as planned
- Prepare some more time than you think for unexpected situations (traffic, not finding enough recipients right away, etc.)
- Be flexible in case something goes wrong to at least make the best out of it for yourself and the recipients. It’s the thought that counts and many people will appreciate that already.
- Don’t set your expectations for reactions too high. Some people can be happy even without freaking out
