Can Drive Fundraiser in Maine: Raise $500 in a Weekend

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Maine is a 5¢ state, but it has the best redemption infrastructure for a fundraiser in the country: CLYNK. Maine also pays 15¢ on wine and liquor bottles, which is triple the standard rate, and those bottles show up in household recycling at every graduation party, wedding, and holiday. Maine households are already in the CLYNK habit, so a drive here is less "please save cans" and more "tag your bag for us."

The Math in Maine

Every can-drive decision comes down to one number: what Maine pays you per container. At 5¢ (15¢ wine & liquor), here is exactly what your team has to collect.

Goal	Containers Needed	Large Trash Bags (≈250 each)
$100	2,000	8
$250	5,000	20
$500	10,000	40
$1,000	20,000	80

A grocery bag (30–40 containers) is worth about $1.75.
A large trash bag (about 250 containers) is worth roughly $13.
A full garage — 40 large bags — is around $500, which is how a single weekend reaches banquet money.

Set the goal from the units. A team targeting $500 knows it needs 10,000 containers — and can plan the route around that number instead of hoping.

Where to Redeem in Maine

CLYNK (bag-and-tag drop at participating stores) — Bag at home, seal with a CLYNK tag, drop at the store. The machine counts it and credits the account — including a CLYNK for Causes fundraiser account.

CLYNK lets you bag containers at home, seal the bag with a CLYNK tag, and drop it at a participating store — most commonly Hannaford — where the machine scans, counts, and credits the bag automatically.
You never touch the containers again after bagging them, and you never stand at a reverse vending machine. The count lands in the CLYNK account linked to that tag.
CLYNK for Causes is the part that matters for a team: it sets up a fundraising account so the redemption value from any tagged bag goes to your organization instead of an individual.
Watch the wine and liquor bottles — Maine pays 15¢ on those, triple the standard rate. A single post-wedding or graduation-season collection can outperform a whole month of cans.

Why Maine Teams Run Can Drives

Ask for the wine and liquor bottles specifically. In Maine, one 15¢ bottle is worth three cans, and they pile up in every pantry after a busy summer.

The appeal is the same everywhere in Maine: nothing to sell, nothing to buy, no cash asked from families. Donors hand over containers they already paid a deposit on and were probably never going to redeem — and the team gets paid for the trip.

What the Team Actually Does

A can drive asks for a few hours of team time, not a season: containers are collected from local households in Maine, sorted, and redeemed in one trip to CLYNK (bag-and-tag drop at participating stores).

The containers are free. What decides the result is whether the households on your route actually set their containers aside for you — a communication job, not a collection job, and the one piece worth getting right before you print anything.

And whatever the total, write it down. Knowing your real number is what turns a one-off drive into a fundraiser your club schedules every year.

What to Watch Out For in Maine

In-state containers only. Deposits belong to the state where the beverage was bought. Loading a truck from across the border is deposit fraud — and states are increasingly checking.
Know what's not covered. Beer, soda, water, juice, and wine — 15¢ on wine and liquor bottles carry a deposit; anything outside that list counts as zero. Keep non-covered containers out of the load so your count stays clean.
Redemption caps. Many retailers limit how many containers one person can return in a day. That's why a bulk load goes to a redemption center rather than the corner store.
Sort before you go. In Maine the containers worth the most are the ones people forget to set aside — wine and liquor bottles pay up to 15¢ in some states, and larger containers pay double in California.

What's in the 6-Hour Team Fundraiser Kit — $6.99, instant download

What you get: a complete, fillable kit you print and run — ready-to-print team communication materials, route and volunteer planning sheets, collection tracking forms, a sorting and totals worksheet, the complete step-by-step checklist, a Pro-Tips reference card, and the thank-you cards that keep people participating next season.

It's built for a $600+ goal in about 6 hours of team effort — no selling, no door-knocking, and no asking families to buy anything. And it's built around the one asset that does the asking for you: the single piece that decides whether a drive comes home with three bags or four figures, and the piece we are deliberately not printing on this page.

Team name, sport and year are fillable right in the PDF — no design software needed. Print it at home or anywhere you have a printer. Nothing ships. Get the kit — $6.99 →

Maine Can Drive FAQ

How much is a can worth in Maine?

Maine pays 5¢ (15¢ wine & liquor) per container on beer, soda, water, juice, and wine — 15¢ on wine and liquor bottles. That means 2,000 containers to raise $100 — and about $13 in a single large trash bag.

Where do you redeem cans in Maine?

Bag at home, seal with a CLYNK tag, drop at the store. The machine counts it and credits the account — including a CLYNK for Causes fundraiser account.