CSR TEAM BUILDING
Food Donation Golf
Teams build a mini-golf hole out of canned food, then play every hole on the course. When the round ends, every can goes to a local food bank.
Food Donation Golf on the bluff lawn at Seascape, Aptos.
PHASE ONE
Build the hole
Every team gets the same pile of groceries. What they do with it is the whole game.
Each team receives a crate of canned and boxed food plus a build kit: two cup-style holes, small boxes, plastic tubes, construction paper, tape, scissors, a putter and a ball. Out of that they design a playable hole: ramps, tunnels, banks, bumpers, hazards, and a name.
Nobody can buy an advantage. Everyone starts from the same cans, so the difference comes down to how a team thinks, argues and tests. Teams tune the hole as they build it, and the moment play starts, the hole is locked. No modifications.
PHASE TWO
Play the course
One ball, one putter, and the player changes after every stroke.
Once the course is built it opens, and every team plays every hole. Because the team shares a single ball and rotates after each shot, nobody sits out and no single golfer can carry the group. The order you set at the first hole is the order you keep all the way round.
Each team leaves a host at their own hole to record what visiting teams score and keep the rotation honest. Missing your turn or hitting out of order costs five strokes.
The scoring is the twist
Your score is not how well you played. It is how well your hole defended itself against everyone else — divided by how well you played it yourself.
So you want a hole that genuinely punishes everybody else, and you want to be the team that knows the line through it. That is why you play your own hole last — you have watched every other team attempt it, and you still have to prove you can beat them on it.
It changes how people build. Design and execution are highlighted while golfing becomes frivolous except on your own golf hole where the stakes are the highest!
PHASE THREE
Donate the food
Every food item in the course goes to a local food bank, and it is chosen from their most needed items list!
We buy against the receiving food bank’s current highest-need list rather than whatever is cheapest by the pallet. Protein, shelf-stable staples, rice, beans, kid-friendly items, whatever is short that month.
At the end of the round the teams break the course down, stack the food, and load it out. Nothing is props. No food goes in a bin. The pile your group is standing next to in the photo is the pile that gets delivered.
Indoors or outdoors
If there is a flat floor and room to spread out, there is a golf course.
We have run this on a resort lawn above the ocean, on a ballroom carpet with the banquet tables pushed back, and on a tiled patio. We bring interlocking floor mats so the holes play the same whether the surface underneath is grass, carpet or tile.
Weather stops being a problem: if the lawn is out, the same course goes inside without changing the program.
What you need to know
| Format | 18 holes, 18 teams |
| Team size | 5 to 8 People |
| Run time | 1.5 to 2.5 hours |
| Space | Flat lawn, ballroom, patio or deck |
| Setting | Indoor or outdoor |
| Donation | All food to a local food bank |
We bring all of it
- Canned and boxed food for every team
- Two cup-style holes per team, flat and recessed
- Boxes, plastic tubes and construction paper
- Duct tape, masking tape and scissors
- Putters and balls
- Interlocking floor mats for every hole
- Hole numbers, scorecards and signage
- Facilitators who run the whole thing
You supply the people and the space. We load in, set up, run the event, break it down and take the food to the food bank.
From the course
Eighteen teams, eighteen holes, one very large pile of groceries.
A CSR event people will remember
It’s challenging to build a golf hole that works, and even more so to build one that wins. The building of relationships is forged in the process. The giveaway adds an immediate sense of purpose and a meaningful depth to a frivolous activity.
The combination of an engaging and well run team activity with an immediate and timely donation creates a “hole” greater than the sum of the parts!
Looking at other options? See STEM Corporate Charity Team Building and Drone Games STEM charity event.
Tell us the date and the room
Give us your city, your group size and your date, and we will tell you what fits. Usually the same day.