Sign-up sheets / Nonprofit & community
Sign-up sheet
Toy Drive Sign Up Sheet (free, online)
Collection-site shifts, a sorting day, delivery drivers and the bins and tape, from the first Saturday to the last doorstep.
How to set it up
A toy drive has four jobs and they happen on different days. Collection: two people at each store entrance for a few hours on a Saturday, keeping the bin tidy and thanking people. Sorting: a crowd for one day to sort by age, bag by family and label. Delivery: drivers with room in the back to take bags to homes or the agency the week after. And the supplies that make it work, bins, tape, bags and markers, which someone has to bring before the first Saturday.
The mistake is one row called 'toy drive volunteers' that gets twenty people on sorting day and nobody in the cold at the store door. Put each day on its own list with real times, and the drivers on a list of their own, so the person with a truck and no free Saturday mornings can see exactly where they fit. One tip: say 'new and unwrapped, ages 0 to 14' on the page and on the bin. You'll spend less of sorting day pulling out used stuffed animals.
Questions people ask
- How do we handle drop-off and delivery logistics?
- Ask drivers at signup what they drive and how many bags fit, and get a phone number. Routes go out by text the day before. If you're delivering to homes, send drivers in pairs: put the driver's helper row right under the driver row so they fill together, and nobody knocks on a door alone.
- Do the store sites need permission?
- Yes, from the store manager, a few weeks ahead. Once you have it, name the entrance in the row ('east doors') so volunteers show up at the right one.
- What about toys for older kids?
- They're always short. Say 'ages 10 to 14 especially' in the page description and, if you want, add an item row for 'gifts for teens: earbuds, gift cards, sports gear' with a count.
Why not a paper sheet or a Google Form?
A paper sheet lives in one place and fills up with the first people who walk past it. A Google Form takes forty signups for a row that needed two, and you find out in the spreadsheet. An online sign-up sheet closes each row when it's covered, sends a reminder the day before, and gives every person a link to cancel so the spot reopens. See the side-by-side with Google Forms.
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