Holiday Nourishing Neighbors
2025 Program Overview
Introduction
This holiday season during the Nourishing Neighbors program, your local Shaw's and Star Market will raise funds through customer donations to help provide meals to families in need. Those funds will be donated to food banks and other nonprofits like yours in the form of grocery store gift cards.
We here at Gift Card Bank are excited to partner with Shaw's and Star Market once again to award these gift card grants!
Gift Card Bank is a nonprofit organization that specializes in the distribution of gift cards, and our mission is to improve well-being and build financial stability by supporting people through their time of need. If your organization is selected to receive cards, we will be your main contact for all gift card shipping, logistics, and troubleshooting issues. Our primary goal is to make sure you get what you need in a fast, reliable, and easy way. We’re here to look out for you!
How to Apply
Applications for the program are invite only. Organizations are nominated by their local stores, and then must apply to Gift Card Bank through our online application. The application is simple, and shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes to complete.
Gift cards received through this program will be shipped out in late January or early February of 2026, and should be distributed to individuals and families in need by June 30, 2026.
Applications are due by Friday, September 19 at midnight, and organizations will be notified of their selection in mid-October.
Distribution Deadline
The funds for these gift cards will be raised in-store during the 2025 holiday season as part of Shaw's and Star Market's holiday Nourishing Neighbors campaign. All gift cards you receive should be distributed to individuals and families in need by June 30, 2026.
Program Timeline
- September 4, 2025: Applications open on an invite-only basis
- September 19, 2025: Applications due
- Mid-October 2025: Organizations notified of selection
- January/February 2026: Distribution of gift cards arrives
- June 30, 2026: Deadline for organizations to hand out gift cards
- July 31, 2026: Final report due from organizations
Distribution Strategy
In the application, we’ll ask you for a brief description of how you plan to distribute the gift cards.
Since you will not know how many cards you’re receiving until the stores raise their funds, there’s no need to go into specific dollar amounts or budgets. We’d like to know your general approach to distribution, such as which programs or times of year you will use the cards for, populations served, and how you will hand the cards out.
Final Report
All organizations will be required to submit a brief final report, which will be due by July 31, 2026. This will be a simple form with only a few questions, just to check in on how your distribution went and collect any feedback or testimonials you might have.
You can preview the final report below.
Activating Your Gift Cards
To prevent theft, the cards will not be active when you receive them and will be unable to be used. When you receive the cards, it is critical that you activate them before handing them out. Failure to do so can result in significant issues downstream, including clients stuck at the register unable to pay for their groceries.
To activate your cards:
1) Email team@giftcardbank.org (or simply reply directly to your shipping email) to let us know you have received your cards. Please include your order number.
2) Wait to distribute the cards until you hear from us that we have activated them. If you don’t hear from us within two business days, feel free to email again.
3) Once you hear back from us that we’ve activated the cards, please allow 24 hours for the gift cards to complete the activation process.
When you receive your shipping email, please forward it to anyone who may accept delivery of the cards to ensure that all relevant personnel are looking out for them and understand the activation instructions.
Thank Yous and Acknowledgments
Thank you notes to Gift Card Bank can be sent to team@giftcardbank.org. We love to read them, and we'll pass them on to our contacts at Shaw's and Star Market, too!
If you'd like to thank Shaw's and Star Market directly, you can send them to Teresa Edington at Teresa.Edington@shaws.com.
We also highly recommend you reach out to the store who raised funds for your organization, and spread the word on social media about the program. If selected to participate, you'll be told which store or stores raised funds for your organization via email. You can also email team@giftcardbank.org if you'd like a reminder.
Redemption Rates
Gift Card Bank keeps track of redemption rates on the gift cards we donate. The purpose of this is to ensure we are being the best stewards we can be of the funds raised by our store partners and their customers. We will share the redemption rate of your gift card grant with you at the end of the program, and work with you to problem solve if it happens to be low. A low redemption rate will affect how many gift cards you receive in future grant opportunities.
Our primary goal is always to work with you to get these cards into the hands of people who need them as efficiently and as fairly as possible. Our data shows us that when individuals and families receive the gift cards, they use them quickly. We are excited to work with you to help feed our neighbors in need!
Frequently Asked Questions
The gift cards ship with FedEx Ground.
No, a signature will not be required. However, if the shipment is being delivered to a business address, the business will need to be open for someone to accept the package. If being delivered to a residential address, the package will be left on your doorstep. Note that we are unable to deliver to PO Boxes.
Unfortunately, due to system limitations and the scale of this distribution, we are unable to provide tracking information. If you have not received your gift cards by the date listed in your shipping confirmation email, please email us at team@giftcardbank.org and we will look into your order.
Sometimes our emails are caught by spam filters, or blocked from delivery entirely. Please check your spam folder and see if our email ended up there. If it’s not there, email us at team@giftcardbank.org and we’ll forward it along. We also recommend adding team@giftcardbank.org to your address book to ensure our emails make it past your spam filters.
Please email team@giftcardbank.org with your order number and we will activate your cards. If you do not hear back from us within two business days, please feel free to email again. Once you hear back from us that we’ve activated the cards, please allow 24 hours for the gift cards to complete the activation process.
This can become a major issue! Please email us at team@giftcardbank.org and do not distribute any further cards until we resolve the situation. Additionally, if possible, please instruct the people you distributed cards to that they should refrain from attempting to use them until we give the green light that they are activated. Trying to use a gift card before it has been activated triggers a fraud warning in the system and may delay the gift card’s activation status, even after the rest of the order has been activated.
Yes. The gift cards can be used to purchase gas at participating grocers with gas stations attached to them.
Please email us at team@giftcardbank.org and we will try to help you out. You may need to get in touch with FedEx directly to have them hold or reroute your package.
The gift cards will not expire, but they must be completely distributed to your clients by the distribution deadline.
The gift cards can be used at any Albertsons or affiliated supermarket and are not restricted to specific stores. The stores they will work at include: Albertsons, Safeway, Vons, Pavilions, ACME, Kings, Shaw's, Star Market, Tom Thumb, Lucky, and Randalls. The gift cards cannot be used for online purchases or delivery.
Often when we hear that a gift card isn’t working, it’s because there were alcohol or tobacco products included in the purchase. These gift cards exclude the sale of these items, and will be automatically declined if they are present. Please first check with your client to see whether this was the case. If not, our strong recommendation is for the gift card user themselves to call the helpline to resolve the issue. This is the most efficient way for them to get taken care of and receive a replacement card quickly if needed. The number for that, which you may pass along to your clients, is 1-877-723-3929 (Prompt 4). That said, we know many of our partners serve a vulnerable population that may not have the means or resources to make this call. In such a case, Gift Card Bank can also work directly with you to investigate and replace cards that are having issues. In order to do this, we will need to know the quantity of affected cards and the card number from the back of each card to be replaced, as well as the date you gave each card to a client.
Due to the large number of organizations we are working with across the country, we are unable to accept phone calls. We are absolutely thrilled and humbled that through this nation-wide program we’ve been able to provide grocery store gift cards to nearly 900 organizations like yours, but we are a small team and the breadth of donations makes even brief phone calls untenable. The fastest way to have your question answered is to email us at team@giftcardbank.org.
Yes! Due to tech limitations, we are unable to send these out automatically, but if you'd like a csv of each card number in your order, please email us at team@giftcardbank.org.
Yes! The gift cards should be treated as a cash donation.
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