Every month I donate food to our local food pantry. Do those who receive the food really want bags of rice and beans? Do the really want cans of soup?
I can understand the need for toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, and toilet paper. Obviously, anyone in need can use these.
Do you think these food donations do any good?
What the…? Rice and beans are a higher priority than toothpaste and soap.
Of course your donations of food are appreciated.
I have often wondered the same thing myself. IMO the longer a food is designed to last, the less resemblance it bears to actual food. I mean every time I walk past a food donation basket I think “Who the heck is going to want to eat THAT?” And then I buy a can and toss it on and feel a little guilty for giving them such shitty food. But I suppose there’s no other way to do it. It would be nice if we could make sure the poor and/or homeless got some real food every once in a while but if I’m not mistaken food pantries are where people go when they have no food at all. So yeah, I guess they appreciate the beans and rice.
When I was in Americorps, we loved working at food pantries because usually they would feed us, and starving Americorps members can clear out free food like nothing you’ve ever seen. I’ve cooked a few meals for the homeless, and to be honest the food’s actually pretty good, nothing fancy, just good plain meals. The folks we cooked for never seemed to mind. There was a big demand for coffee, and fresh veggies were also very popular. When I worked on an organic farm, we’d bring cucumbers and squash and stuff, and people would snap them up like candy.
Don’t forget pets when you donate to a food pantry. One of the vet techs I worked with made a house call to pick up a vaccination-due pet for an elderly long time client who was no longer able to drive. She brought back the pet in tears because the lady was so broke she and the dog were living off hot dogs. We took up a collection at the clinic and laid in some staples and dog food for them, and put her in touch with a local food bank. The food bank told us that if they got more donations of pet food, more of the people food would go to people. Some elderly people - the pet is all the company they have, so they don’t want to give it up. I don’t blame them.
I won’t forget them after today. I’m going to suggest that they add pet food to their donation list. I’ll happily donate pet food as well.
Beans and rice are excellent food that many people eat even when they are NOT poor. Brown rice and beans eaten together is a complete protein source, which is nothing to sneeze at if you’re hungry. It’s definitely better than some of the canned, boxed, or plastic tub stuff that a lot of people wind up eating. Kudos to you if this is the stuff you are giving to the food pantry. Good eats.
As someone who has had to survive off those donations at one point YES we appreciate beans and rice! And canned tuna, canned veggies, canned fruits. Even instant potatoes.
As long as you’d eat it, they’ll like it. Growing up, my friends who’s families ate from pantries did their best too cook with what they got. Sometimes they were a bit puzzled when they got stuff like a can of creamed corn, a box of breadcrumbs, and a jar of sardine. Occasionally they were saddened when they got weird out-of-date food nobody would pick out for themselves. It probably wasn’t so great when they got unnutricious food like ramen and kool-aid. But they’d find some way to eat it.
Fruit, especially good fruit like pineapple, is always appreciated. I remember that distinctly as an unaffordable treat.
Rice and beans are great food, but maybe not the best food donations. You can buy a 20 lb. bag of rice and a 20lb bag of beans for $20.00 all together. This will provide about 2,500 servings of rice and beans. Any poor person who isn’t already eating rice and beans either doesn’t know how to cook them or lacks the ability to. Remember that many poor people do not have working kitchens in their homes. This is why canned food and stuff like peanut butter can be so important.
I was at the local food bank yesterday. They told us they really like peanut butter donations and to consider that the recipient may not have a means to heat or cook food but that almost everyone can locate a can opener.
The bank had 2000 pound bags of rice and beans that needed to be separated into 2 pound bags (we did 24 cases!).
I was surprised to see so many perishables (meats, milk products, fruits and veggies)- they get those from the growers, suppliers, and grocery stores and must have them out within 3 days.
Yesterdays outgoing boxes were labeled ‘family box’ and ‘senior box’, but they provide bulk food to institutions that cook in large amounts also.
Don’t forget powdered milk. It sucks as a beverage, but you can use it in cooking, and if you really need it, it’s there.
When I donate food, I try to give stuff that most people use; canned green beans, corn, beans, rice, jello, what have you. You can create good meals from the standard stuff. I don’t want to give things like canned pearl onions. Most people wouldn’t know what the hell to make with 'em.
Ok, I’ve had a question and this seems like the appropriate place to ask it. I am myself on an extremely tight budget but every shopping trip I try to spend $1-2 towards food pantry items… when I have a bag together (takes a few weeks) I drop it off at our food pantry.
Given that per trip, I spend very little on these items, I am sometimes put in a quandry. Is it better to buy more of a less desireable item (lets say 2 cans of fruit cocktail) or less of a more desirable item (say 1 can can of pineapple). After all, people getting food assistance are probably already buying the absolute cheapest food, do they need more of the same or is it more beneficial to contribute “nicer” items for that small luxury?
BTW, 90% of the stuff I buy are staples like canned tomatoes, tuna, beans, peanut butter, jelly, etc. Its just that every now and then a sale on a “nicer” item (name brand pasta, spagettios, pineapple) prompts this question.
Be sure if you do donate pet food not to buy the cheapest kind of food. Read the label to see if it’s healthy enough. I’m not saying buy the most expensive kind, maybe just the second or third cheapest kind of food. I know I won’t buy the Special Kitty kind of food. (Very cheap cat food.) I tried it once because another person recommended it and said it was great. I didn’t think to check the label, and after a couple days of eating it, my male cat was STINKY. (I only had one cat at the time.) He got gassy and his litterbox was twice as stinky. That food has a lot of ash in it. I will never feed it to my cats again. (I don’t switch food brands on them anyway, I’d been feeding my male cat Purina, and have stuck with that since the Special Kitty horrors.) I asked the vet about it, and he said it’s not really nutritious and he knows a lot of cats that get stinky with it. The vet said Purina was about the cheapest he’d go for dry food.
Healthy schmelthy, I used to toss in a bag of Hershey’s Kisses for my former employer’s annual bags-o-food drive. I figure they’re as entitled to a chocolate fix as anyone else!
One of the things they told me at Second Harvest is it’s really helpful to have family-sized portions to give out, as opposed to the industrial packages. They want to enable families to have a meal together at home, rather than forcing them to rely on a public feeding place.
And beans & rice, that’s yummy! Especially w/some cumin, shredded cheese and fresh salsa.
Thanks for the reminder on donations, we’ve been negligent of late ::off to find a reputable giving site::.
When I was trying to be the sole breadwinner for a family of four with a hotel Night Auditor’s salary, my wife frequently (needless to say) had to go to the “can church” and the “bread church” to keep us eating*. For years I kept a can of government beef that we had managed not to eat, just as a reminder of what failure looks like. Yes a can of corn or green beans or water chestnuts or whatever the hell you have is appreciated. Just say a little parayer that the person who receives the donation will one day be in a position to look down their nose at it.
*incidentally, people used to say how lucky Iwas that my wife had two kids and yet was a thin as she was when we were dating. This was becasue we had no car at the time, and she had to make the 2½ mile circuit with a toddler and a baby in a big double stroller.
Just another voice of experience to echo that poor people are grateful as hell for *whatever *you choose to donate.
Seriously, have you ever seen the innards of a can of gov’ment issued pork? shudders I found lots of ways to neutralize it, but it smells ten times worse than wet cat food.
My favorite donation at my local food pantry was a sh*tload of chubs of ground venison, donated by the local wild game store who cleaned out their freezer. Of course, no one else wanted something so “weird”, so I ended up with about 12 one-pound packages of the stuff, well over my usual allotment. We fed like kings for weeks on that stuff. Venison burgers, venison loaf, venison “shepherd’s pie”! It was wonderful.
Name brand cereal is also a treat. The generic governent stuff is really bland and tasteless, with very little fiber or nutrient value.
Also ask your local pantry what their needs are when it comes to baby food.
A lot of people think of “the poor sta’ving cheeeeldruuuuun” and donate lots of jars of baby food. My local food shelf in Ottawa was, at one point, so overstocked in the stuff they didn’t know what to do with it. 
In my experience, people will be happy with whatever you donate.
Also a good idea - when your office throws a party and there are plenty of leftovers, talk to the local soup kitchen. Often, they’re thrilled to receive the stuff that’s left over. I have dropped off trays of untouched sandwiches, hotdogs and all the fixins, huge untouched sub sections and huge canisters of soup that were left over from office/school events. They were always received with great joy and were snapped up by the folks who were there for a meal.
If I were to donate cereal (or hell, eat it myself), what sort is worth giving, nutrition-wise?
I like to donate junk food. I donate the staples, of course, but people ought to have a bag of chips and some Twinkies evey now and then.
I’d like to remind everyone to remember their local battered women’s shelter. They need food donations, too, and not just at the holidays. They’re also usualy extremely grateful for donations of used clothing and toys, since women and their kids often flee with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
I’d say go for the whole-grain stuff, like shredded wheat or raisin bran, and avoid sugary stuff with cartoon characters on the box. (At least that’s what I do.) I like donating food because it seems likely that my donation will directly help somebody who needs it; with money I’m never sure where it’s going to end up.