Solicitation Policy
Thank you for contacting Food Lion regarding your request for our support. Food Lion's philanthropic focus is on ending hunger in the towns and cities we serve through Food Lion Feeds, our hunger-relief initiative.
Food Lion Feeds was created in 2014 to help our neighbors experiencing hunger within the communities we served. At that time, we set a goal of donating 500M meals by 2020. We achieved that goal in mid-2019. We then committed to donating one billion more meals by the end of 2025. TOGETHER, we are well on our way of achieving that goal.
Food Lion values the contributions of the many volunteer and community groups and organizations that raise funds for important causes in the towns and cities we serve. To that end, we may allow 501(c)3 charitable organizations who are fundraising for local causes to solicit outside of our stores on Saturdays up to two times per calendar year when Food Lion is not running an in-store charitable campaign. *
For 2023, charitable organizations may apply to solicit on these Saturday dates only:
- January 7, 14, 21, 28
- February 4, 11
- March 25
- April 1, 8, 15, 22, 29
- May 6, 13, 20, 27
- July 8, 15, 22, 29
- August 5, 12, 19, 26
- September 2
- October 14, 21, 28
- November 4
Guidelines
Some additional solicitation guidelines to keep in mind include:
- Bake sales, open food or drink, car washes and membership drives are not allowed. Food Lion also strictly prohibits any individual or group from petitioning or distributing any type of literature on our premises.
- Solicitations are permitted on Saturdays only. Only one charity can solicit at a store on a given Saturday. Charitable organizations may solicit twice in a calendar year.
- Solicitors are not allowed before sunrise or after sunset.
- Solicitation is permitted to the right of the door entrance (facing the store) at least 15 feet from the doorway to enable customers to enter and exit the store comfortably.
- Two solicitors may be present for each approved event. If the event is youth-related, two adults and two children should be present.
- The area of solicitation should be kept neat, clean and professional in appearance. Solicitors should present professional courteous behavior.
- Solicitors must adhere to all state and local CDC guidelines that may be in place.
Food Lion reserves the right to deny access to any group or person at its discretion or revoke any access provided at the sole discretion of Food Lion management. No person shall unduly interfere with the normal use of our stores, including ingress to and egress from these stores, employees' work and customers' shopping. Further, the person(s) should not interfere with the operation of other businesses that may be located nearby. The Store Manager has the right to deny solicitation if the above procedures are not followed.
Please note all contributions are made at the sole discretion of Food Lion or its charitable foundation, Food Lion Feeds Charitable Foundation. It is our goal to ensure that all donations from Food Lion are provided to organizations that treat its constituents fairly and with equality, and that these organizations do not discriminate based on gender, race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, sexual orientation or gender identity.
*Local is described as within a 10-mile radius of the organization's location.
