Lumberjacks to conduct food drive this weekend

Fans contributing items receive free ticket to future game

MUSKEGON, Mich. (November 15, 2011) – With Thanksgiving and the holiday season approaching, the Muskegon Lumberjacks are joining the effort to provide for the less fortunate among us – and they invite their fans to help.

The Lumberjacks ask their supporters to bring non-perishable food items to their upcoming games on Friday, Nov. 18 and Saturday, Nov. 19 at L.C. Walker Arena. The Jacks organization has teamed up with Cans From Fans, who will collect the items this weekend and distribute them to local food pantries.

Any fan who contributes three (3) or more items will receive a free ticket to the Lumberjacks’ matchup with the Indiana Ice on Sunday, Dec. 18 at 5:15 p.m.

For more information on how you can help our community, please contact the Muskegon Rescue Mission (muskegonmission.com), located at 1691 Peck St. The Muskegon Rescue Mission has been providing food, shelter, clothing and spiritual direction to hurting individuals and families since its founding in 1907.

Inspired by local marketing agency RC Productions, Cans From Fans is a non-profit organization that facilitates food drives in the greater Muskegon area. Visitcansfromfans.com for more information on non-perishable food items to contribute.

Winners of five of their last six, the Lumberjacks (6-6-0, 12 points) host the Tri-City Storm and Green Bay Gamblers on Friday and Saturday, respectively. Both games start at 7:15 p.m. Gates open at 6 p.m. for the Friday game, which is $1 Beer/$1 Hot Dog Night presented by John Morrell. The best offer in sports lasts until 8 p.m. for every Friday home game!

Log onto startickets.com, visit your local Meijer location, or contact the L.C. Walker Arena box office at 231.724.JACK(5225) for tickets.

The Muskegon Lumberjacks are proud members of the United States Hockey League, the nation’s only Tier I junior hockey league and the leading producer of NCAA players and National Hockey League draft picks in the United States. The Lumberjacks’ organization prides itself on developing not just premier hockey talent, but also exceptional young men outside the arena of sports. For more information, visit muskegonlumberjacks.com.

The food drive, designed to collect nonperishable food items from fans attending community events, is preparing for its second year of fighting hunger in the Muskegon area.

“Cans from Fans is committed to our local community and achieving record-setting goals in this second annual event,” said Randy Crow, president of RC Productions and founder of Cans for Fans.

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Muskegon, MI — Cans From Fans™, the Muskegon-based food drive to collect non-perishable food items from fans attending community events, is gearing up for its second annual food drive at Summer Celebration 2011. The first Cans From Fans food drive collected over 10,000 pounds of food. This, in turn, helped our local food pantries during the toughest time of year – the summer months.

This year, Cans From Fans is hoping to make it easier for people to donate during…

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Muskegon, MI – Cans From Fans is pleased to report that our two fall food drives were successful. Cans from Fans partnered with the Ryan Wilson Agency and The Lakes Mall for a Trick or Treat event this Halloween and also with Independent Bank for a food drive from September 17^th through November 10^th. We held an on-site event on November 5^th at Independent Bank to further stimulate…

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“Independent Bank is focused on the communities we are involved in, “says AVP Branch Manager, Jessica Sowles. “We are excited to be partnering with Cans From Fans and hope to have a successful food drive to support many local pantries.”

People are encouraged to bring non-perishable food like canned meats and fish, canned soup, juice, pasta, vegetables, cereal, peanut butter and rice to Independent Bank. Those who donate food or make monetary donations can enter to win prizes. Past prizes have included gift certificates from local businesses, an autographed guitar, concert tickets, CDs, and more.

Learn more about Independent Bank at independentbank.com.

Ryan Wilson Agency Sponsors an Event at the Lakes Mall

Ryan Wilson, from the Ryan Wilson Agency, is sponsoring a trick-or-treat/Cans From Fans Event at the Lakes Mall on Friday, October 29th. The stores will hand out candy from 6-7pm and anyone who donates non-perishable food items will receive a trick-or-treat bag.

“I’m passionate about supporting our local community and believe it is possible to make a difference one person at a time,” says Wilson.

Learn more about Ryan Wilson at ryanwilsonagency.com.

Corporate Donations
Your company can make a huge impact towards stopping hunger. Cans From Fans’ main goal is to collect non-perishable food items from fans attending community events, and you can help make our goal a reality by making a corporate donation. Whether your company funds a donation or your employees team up to volunteer at an event, you can make a huge difference in many local lives.

Take the initiative to collect dollars from your co-workers or request us as your next recipient for Blue Jean Friday money. Or simply tell your HR department about us so we’re on their radar as a non-profit organization. We truly appreciate your altruistic efforts—they couldn’t come at a better time.

Your tax-deductable donation can go a long way towards ensuring those who are hungry get the food they so desperately need. We’ll do our part to ensure your company gets the recognition it deserves.

Cans From Fans will host their second food drive at the 2010 Muskegon Shoreline Spectacular. The event runs from September 3 through September 6 and the Cans From Fans semi-trailer will be on site all four days. There will also be donation bins located throughout the event.

Attendees of the Shoreline Spectacular are encouraged to bring non-perishable food like canned meats and fish, canned soup, juice, pasta, vegetables, cereal, peanut butter and rice to the Cans From Fans semi-trailer. Those who donate food or make monetary donations will receive free parking at locations surrounding the event. Signs will be posted indicating participating parking lots.

All donations will be distributed to local food pantries. Food distribution and volunteer coordination will be executed by Bethany Paterson from Ecclesia Church. Expired, dented or damaged items and those in glass containers will not be accepted.

Cans From Fans’ first food drive at the 2010 Muskegon Summer Celebration resulted in over three tons of food being distributed to area food pantries, and organizers are excited to give more to those in need.

The Muskegon Shoreline Spectacular runs September 3 through September 6 and will be located in downtown Muskegon. Learn more at www.shorelinespectacular.com.

Visit us online to learn more at www.cansfromfans.com or follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/CansFromFans to get updates and information about future events.

If you or your company would like to donate prizes, please email info@cansfromfans.com.

Cans From Fans Recently Appeared on mLive.com
Muskegon ‘Cans From Fans’ to collect food for hungry at Shoreline Spectacular

We Still Need Prizes!

Do you have a product or service you’d like to contribute? Prizes will be won by those who donate food or money at the Shoreline Spectacular. Contact Carly for more information.

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I’m proud to report that our first Cans From Fans event generated a ton of positive community response and support. Donation volume grew every day of the eleven-day event and attendees helped us live up to our motto: Together we can help feed our community.

Last week over three tons of food were distributed to our local food pantries. We are grateful and thankful to everyone who answered the call and donated to the Cans From Fans food drive. This event targeted a different audience than other food drives by associating donating food with concert/festival/art fair and air show attendees.

The inaugural Cans From Fans Food drive would not have been possible without the help of many people and volunteers, many of whom worked behind the scenes and played an important role in the event’s success. The fifty-three foot semi-trailer was provided by Jerry Lundberg and his team at The Storage Group in Fruitport and the beautiful truck graphics were printed by Source One Digital and installed by Graphiti Graphix. Inter City Dispatch did a great job driving the truck in parade. To all our vendors who donated materials and supplies—we thank you.

Our media partners in our community really came through for us. The Muskegon Chronicle helped promote Cans From Fans and allowed us to use the Chronicle warehouse for staging and sorting of our distribution process. Thank you to WMUS, WSHZ, WMRR, WKBZ, TV-13, Lamar Outdoor, Comcast, Charter and many others promoted the Cans From Fans food drive.

We received great prizes to give away to our donors, like an autographed guitar, Apple iPad, concert tickets, CDs and more.

Our volunteers were the best and made the day-to-day operations happen! Bethany Patterson from Ecclesia Church organized the volunteers and made sure everyone was in the right place at the right time, plus she coordinated the distribution of all donations. Her work and support went above and beyond our expectations. Visit cansfromcans.com to see a full list of our sponsors. A special thank you to our Facebook community. The word continues to spread even though our first event is over and we thank you for talking and posting.

Many people have asked where will we be next, and we are working on that. Look for us in your community as we continue to work together to make sure nobody goes hungry in our community.

A big thank you to Summer Celebration for allowing us to neighbor their great event. This community is so blessed to have such a great event!

Finally, to my staff at RC Productions, you are some of the most talented and gifted people and I’m blessed to be surrounded by a team who works so hard. When the call went out to help our community you answered it above and beyond.
I will forever be thankful to each and every one of you.

Thank You.

Randy A. Crow
President / Owner
RC Productions 
Cans From Fans Organizer