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This year, donations will go either to local heroes at Ohio and Kentucky Military Bases
and Servicemembers, to First Responders, or to a local food pantry.

Popcorn For A Purpose Donation Program

This page is all about the popcorn donation program for military donations, food pantry donations and first responder donations.  Several new enhancements have been made to the  Donation Program to help support your unit, our US Troops, local food pantries, and responders by providing popcorn.

The Donation Levels for 2023 are:

  • Gold Donation Level: $50
  • Silver Donation Level: $30
  • $1 Bucket Donations: You can also log all your smaller donations as American Hero
    donations and we’ll send popcorn to support these groups as they add up.

Use your unit’s special military/food pantry donation bucket for your popcorn booth. 

FAQ’s About the Donation Program

The Popcorn Donation Program allows you to support the military, food pantries, first responders, and Scouting at the same time. Up to 75% of the purchase is still returned to local Scouting and the remaining popcorn equivalent is either sent to a local food pantry, first responders, or sent to men and women in the military, their families and veterans’ organizations. There are no shipping and handling charges associated with American Hero Donations.

You will not actually receive product/popcorn for Donation items. When purchasing a Popcorn Donation level, 75% of your purchase is returned to local Scouting and then the popcorn itself is sent directly to either a local food pantry, first responders, or to military service-members.  In addition, a portion of the donations go directly to local service-members.

The Military Donation allows you to support the military and Scouting at the same time. Up to 75% of the purchase is still returned to local Scouting and the remaining popcorn equivalent is sent to men and women in the military, their families and veterans’ organizations. 

You will not actually receive product for Military Donation items. Instead, the popcorn is delivered to local military personnel and we partner with Soldiers’ Angels to ship the remaining popcorn equivalent to military men and women, their families, and veteran organizations. 

We have partnered with both the Freestore Foodbank and Shared Harvest (which match our geographic footprint) to also donate popcorn to local food pantries.  This works just like a military donation except that the popcorn is delivered directly to the food pantry to support local families in need. This program is unique to Dan Beard Council. 

The Food Pantry Donation program is unique to Dan Beard Council where as the Military Donation program is a national program in conjunction with Trail’s End for all councils. 

However, you can still apply a portion of your popcorn donation sales by completing the Donation Program Form Here.

Yes.  To include those sales and properly allow us to deliver popcorn to either the military or food pantry, you will need to report your donation totals on your Final Take Order.  See How do I place my Final Take Order for Donations below for more details.

You will record the proceeds from the donations you collected on your Final Order.  

When you go to place your final order, you will see 3 Options for the Donation Program.  These are $50 Gold Level, $30 Silver Level, and a $1 Misc. Military Donation for donations that were collected through the app (either door-to-door or at storefronts).  

Count up the total number of actual donation items of each level.  For example, some Scouts will have recorded multiple $30 Silver Level donations.  

Some Scouts will have also received smaller donations (for example a $5 donation).  You can handle calculating these in one of two ways:

Option 1) Log the sum total of all of your Misc. Donations under the Misc. Donation heading at the bottom of the order page.  

Option 2) Convert the sum total of all of your military donations into either the $30 or $50 levels.

All donations, regardless of military, food pantry, or first responders, are recorded as donations at the appropriate level on your Final Take Order.

If you don’t fill out the form below, we will help to automatically split the totals for you. 

Or if you wish, you can use the Popcorn Donation Program Form Here to tell us exactly how you would like the donations split for your unit.  You can choose all military, all food pantry, all first responders, or split the total among the three.  You will need the total donation amount and the split amounts when completing the form.   

Check out our inventory instructional video, linked below! If your question is not answered in the video, please reach out to unitsupport@trails-end.com.

Inventory Instructional – Video File

Timeline for Topics in the Video
0:00 – High Level Inventory Overview

2:35 – Storefront Site Cash & Inventory Management

5:05 – Wagon Sales Cash & Inventory Management

7:10 – Question/Scenario: Negative Inventory

8:35 – Question/Scenario: Negative Military Donation Inventory

8:55 – Question/Scenario: Negative Storefront Site Inventory / System Inventory Doesn’t Match

13:40 – Question/Scenario: Scouts Logging Sales in the Wrong Location

These donations are essentially the same as Misc. Donations (that you might have recorded in the app).  You will record these on your Final Take Order.  See How do I place my Final Order for Donations above.

No, this would not be appropriate.  These should be recorded and applied to your Final Take Order as donation sales that are ultimately converted into military or food pantry donations.  System checks and balances are in place to help prevent possible fraud.  IRS rules govern that only 501c3 non-profit organizations are able to collect donations, and that these donations must be reported annually to the IRS.  The purchase of the popcorn donation is still the consumer completing a sale as a part of the fundraiser, only the popcorn itself is being delivered to someone else (military or food pantry).  A portion of the Donation Program sale will then be returned to Scouting and your unit.