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I've been volunteering at a local food bank since this summer, and its been an interesting experience, so I thought I would post about it. I thought about making this as a post in D&D or one of the serious forums, because there are lots of important issues about class division to be made around the issue of food security. But I'm too lazy for that. I started out at the food bank because I had a box of old food to give away, and I looked on the internet and it was two blocks from where I was. I walked over there, and asked if they needed volunteers. They said that on Wednesday, the truck came from the central food bank and they needed help unloading it. So I showed up the next week, and have been helping since. A couple things about Food Banks (at least from my limited experience) 1. They get enough food, they just can't store it. There is no shortage of staple foods like pasta and dry beans. But there is a limit of storage space, especially for foods that need to be frozen or refrigerated. When the food bank gets full of those things, they start handing them out as quickly as possible, and then the next week, they might be short on those things. 2. Food bank food runs the gamut from boring staples to snack foods, mostly because of its source. Some of the food comes from a USDA commodity program, and that is stuff like tomato sauce, garbanzo beans, and treated milk. A lot of the food also comes from food drives, and that is usually a combination of canned goods. Lastly, stores donate a lot of stuff, either because it is stuff with a limited shelf life (pastries and bread, frozen pizzas) or because it is an item that didn't sell well. So recipients might end up getting a 2 pound bag of lentils, a 2 pound bag of spaghetti, and then some type of Trader Joe's whole grain pizza that would normally cost 6 dollars for a single serving. 3. Most food bank volunteers are old, and traditional. Unlike non-profits in the arts, education or technology, which have been professionalizing, and attract a lot of young people who have technological skills and big ideas, the people who run food banks seem to be older people who have been putting lentils in the same bag the same way for the past 20 years. This is just my experience, and it might be due to being at a smaller food bank in a non-central location. Its been an interesting experience for me, and I've gotten lots of pastries out of the deal. I would be interested to hear from people who have food bank experience, either at the giving or receiving end.
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Sep 26, 2015 19:16
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 14:59 |
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its called mandated 'community service', not volunteering
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Sep 26, 2015 19:17
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it might be better to help people in other ways so they dont need food banks rather than professionalize them
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Sep 26, 2015 19:18
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TwoFire posted:its called mandated 'community service', not volunteering Seriously, a lot of people there are there for that reason. Either that or because they need some extra food. I am a little bit in the second category.
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Sep 26, 2015 19:19
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I have money but I am cheap. Can I go get free food from the food bank?
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Sep 26, 2015 19:21
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What is the best/most overlooked thing to donate? I usually do soap and toilet paper, because I think people forget that folks need to poop and wash as well as eat.
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Sep 26, 2015 19:22
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glowing-fish posted:Seriously, a lot of people there are there for that reason. That sweet 80 year old biddy over there with the thick wire rims? She ran over a pregnant nun.
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Sep 26, 2015 19:23
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i'm a self-made white christian millionaire. i inherited my late father's fortune and painstakingly grew it from $10m to $10.1 million in 5 years. quite frankly i'm sick of food bank junkies treating themselves to free lobster and caviar on MY dime from the USDA.
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Sep 26, 2015 19:24
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Sylink posted:it might be better to help people in other ways so they dont need food banks rather than professionalize them That would actually be one of the ideas behind professionalizing them. If food banks worked on ways to help people find or make food for themselves, they wouldn't need to be supporting them directly. Some innovation in education would maybe be more helpful than just giving someone a two pound bag of lentils. But that takes energy and savvy.
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Sep 26, 2015 19:29
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Shithouse Dave posted:What is the best/most overlooked thing to donate? I usually do soap and toilet paper, because I think people forget that folks need to poop and wash as well as eat. That probably depends on what type of area you are in, and what population your food bank serves. I would say that for a food bank that is serving a large homeless population, those things are really needed, as are socks and other personal hygiene items. Other food banks that serve a housed populations might not need those things. I am going to go out on a limb here and say the one thing that food banks can most use is...money. Running a walk-in freezer and walk-in refrigerator can get pretty expensive.
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Sep 26, 2015 19:34
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Shithouse Dave posted:What is the best/most overlooked thing to donate? I usually do soap and toilet paper, because I think people forget that folks need to poop and wash as well as eat. Pet food
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Sep 26, 2015 19:44
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I made too much spaghetti last night. Can I send the leftovers to the food bank?
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Sep 26, 2015 20:34
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Matey posted:I made too much spaghetti last night. Can I send the leftovers to the food bank? I'm pretty certain that would be contrary to their spaghetti policy
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Sep 26, 2015 20:52
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putting stolen ketchup packets on ramen does not spaghetti make
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Sep 26, 2015 20:53
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We have one in our little town, in the market square next to the public toilets but it's only open from like 9 to 11am on Wednesdays. All the locals know about it and gather every week to watch the spectacle of disgusting poor people lining up for food. Yeah no thanks, although I would technically qualify.
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Sep 26, 2015 20:54
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Matey posted:I made too much spaghetti last night. Can I send the leftovers to the food bank? Nope, home prepared food doesn't qualify for obvious reasons. Home grown vegetables and produce do, though.
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Sep 26, 2015 21:13
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Cool NIN Shirt posted:Pet food We get a lot of food donations at the animal shelter I work at, and every month or so I drop off about 200lb of pet food, so it didn't occur to me to ask! It is a really good idea though, if you have food your critter doesn't like. Everyone is entitled to love, and pets are an excellent source of love.
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Sep 26, 2015 21:18
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Shithouse Dave posted:We get a lot of food donations at the animal shelter I work at, and every month or so I drop off about 200lb of pet food, so it didn't occur to me to ask! It is a really good idea though, if you have food your critter doesn't like. Everyone is entitled to love, and pets are an excellent source of love. Pet food is also good because it is dry, doesn't need to be refrigerated, and doesn't usually need to be tossed.
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Sep 26, 2015 21:23
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can i serve my dick to the homeless, the op, and everybody else in this thread? or does that violate the aids policy?
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Sep 26, 2015 21:23
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BeefThief posted:can i serve my dick to the homeless, the op, and everybody else in this thread? or does that violate the aids policy? You can bring it in, but it might not be a very helpful food. 
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Sep 26, 2015 21:26
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Shithouse Dave posted:What is the best/most overlooked thing to donate? I usually do soap and toilet paper, because I think people forget that folks need to poop and wash as well as eat. Apparently if you're on foodstamps or whatever locally, you get an allocation of one roll of TP a month here, and there was a toilet paper drive - I gave money to that because one roll a month, gently caress that
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Sep 26, 2015 21:33
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angerbeet posted:Apparently if you're on foodstamps or whatever locally, you get an allocation of one roll of TP a month here, and there was a toilet paper drive - I gave money to that because one roll a month, gently caress that yeah here you can only buy food products, no exceptions
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Sep 26, 2015 21:51
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I volunteered at a non-government food thing for a couple years. Basically people would drive around to bougie grocery stores around town and get all the stuff that was a day from expiry or whatever, and then other volunteers would unload the cars and organize the donated stuff in this yoga studio that let us do this one morning a week. It was pretty sweet, the stores were happy because they were writing off tomorrow's garbage as a charitable donation and the poors were stoked because they'd get all the six dollar loaves of day old bread and moderately ugly produce they could carry. We did about a hundred bags each time, sometimes more on a good week. You could do that basically anywhere, you just need a car or two and some folding tables and some hungry poors that want first pick in exchange for an hour of work. As far as stuff to donate, think outside the box. Pet food is always in short supply, nobody doesn't love new socks, a razor and some deodorant can make a dude feel like a different better dude for weeks, get creative
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Sep 26, 2015 21:56
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There's an emergency food pantry at my job. It's all USDA crap and the occasional donation of bread products we can't unload before they get moldy. Rarely does the USDA provide meat or produce of any kind. People occasional donate stuff from the Asian grocery that sits around forever. It's really depressing.
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Sep 27, 2015 00:01
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I volunteered at a soup kitchen, a few stories. 1) A place literally gave us a crate of near-rotten apples, like with worms and poo poo. And the other volunteers were putting them on the trays until I went through and threw away all the garbage ones to replace with something else. 2) We ran out of the stew or whatever we were serving one day, so the chef told the last 20 people in line that he was going to heat up some fried chicken for them. This caused uproarious cheers among the crowd. 3) I tried to interact with a kid by asking him what kind of dessert he wanted, you know since he's a kid and all. He gave me the most melancholy look imaginable and muttered "It don't matter do it"
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Sep 27, 2015 00:13
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angerbeet posted:Apparently if you're on foodstamps or whatever locally, you get an allocation of one roll of TP a month here, and there was a toilet paper drive - I gave money to that because one roll a month, gently caress that lol, 1 roll of TP a month? Good luck during the holidays only going through 1 roll of TP.
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Sep 27, 2015 00:14
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The Saurus posted:
I worked in the kitchen for some food for poor old people program in highschool and they had weird tax fraud deals with all the local farms of like 'give us 8 pallets of strawberries but 4 of them can just be all the moldy gross junk you want to throw out so you can write it off as donations for taxes"
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Sep 27, 2015 01:15
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This is a good thread - I'm really interested in stories/perspectives as I donate to food banks pretty regularly, despite being aware of the serious flaws in them as model. I just can't resist taking advantage of big sales even if I don't need/want the food myself. OP, what's are the weirdest things that get donated?Is there a lot of stuff (like the rotten apples) that can't even be given out at all? What are the most popular products that fly off the shelves and is there anything that your clients just won't take? Also, if it's okay with OP, can we talk about Christmas toy drives too if anyone has any experience with that? My family does the same kind of thing, with bargain-hunting for good quality toys to donate, and I always angst about whether what I'm buying is the best choice. I've worked the the toy distribution centre on two occasions - once was super fun and once was kind of depressing because we'd run out of most good stuff.
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Sep 27, 2015 01:19
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hate hoot posted:OP, what's are the weirdest things that get donated? 1. Well, I've only been doing this a few months, but for me so far, it would have had to be the time we got 15 or 25 cases (each with 12 bottles) of some type of Whole Foods flavored vinegar water laxative drink. It wasn't a medical laxative, but some type of drink intended to promote regularity or something. That type of thing happens pretty regularly, where some Whole Foods item that doesn't live up to its hype ends up with us. 2. Yes. Its kind of disappointing to move literally 500 pounds of apples into a refrigerator, just to know they are going to hang around for two weeks before getting thrown out. And these aren't apples with spots, in some case, they were apples that were mashed to a pulp that later turned into mold. 3. I would imagine that a lot of the fun products go easily. For staple foods, peanut butter and tuna are always favorites. For products that people won't take, moldy fruits, organ meets, and of course for people who are homeless, foods that need preparation don't do much good. Giving a homeless person two pounds of dry lentils doesn't help them much. You can take this thread in any direction you want, I am happy when GBS talks about things other than Goku.
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Sep 27, 2015 01:37
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Thanks, glowing-fish. Did people like the crazy vinegar water? I heard from a food bank volunteer once that nobody actually wants canned soup, but don't old people like soup? I like to give cereal since I figure kids will like it, and it's usually full of vitamins and minerals (along with loads of sugar, of course). I don't have any good stories from the toy distribution one, just that the second time I did it it was the very last day of the distribution and the shelves were down to those crappy dollar-store fake-Barbies and loads of fancy new jigsaw puzzles. Turns out nobody wants puzzles. Some people brought their kids along with them, and I had to tell the kids that there wasn't any Frozen stuff (for example) left. This year my family's got a couple of new Elsa dolls waiting for the centre, along with an Anna who I'm considering exchanging for someone cooler (do kids even care about Anna?) There were a ton of cool kids' books which were given away for "free" (obviously everything was free, but the rest of the items worked on a point system in an attempt to keep it fair) but hardly any parents took any, which made me sad. I used to volunteer in a kindergarten and those kids were crazy for books! All the kids vied to be the one to pick the book for read-aloud and the little guys would tussle over the pop-up Peter Rabbit stories. Kids need books, people! hate hoot fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Sep 27, 2015 |
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Sep 27, 2015 01:49
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You're a good egg Op. I always donate Peanut Butter. I also donate my time as well. 
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Sep 27, 2015 01:53
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glowing-fish posted:Nope, home prepared food doesn't qualify for obvious reasons. What if I were to get carryout spaghetti from olive garden. Would those leftovers be ok?
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Sep 27, 2015 02:36
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I am very poor and don't have a car or anything and taking a bus to the food bank is so embarrassing I'd rather die this means I don't eat very well and also the most honest thing I'll post
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Sep 27, 2015 02:39
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Matey posted:What if I were to get carryout spaghetti from olive garden. Would those leftovers be ok? No.
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Sep 27, 2015 02:53
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You should lead a pack of homeless to ThreeOlives' condo and have them take complete control of it.
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Sep 27, 2015 02:57
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nah just have them take really noisy shits in the pool
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Sep 27, 2015 02:58
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gimme that ground beef, the real lovely pink slime dirt kind. gimme that spam
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Sep 27, 2015 03:00
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6 piece mcnugget from mcdonalds, fuckin ambrosia
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Sep 27, 2015 03:02
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If we simply immolate the homeless with fire, there would be no hunger
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Sep 27, 2015 03:03
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 14:59 |
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Earlier this year, I was in a really bad place following a car accident and losing a job and ended up going to a food bank a couple times before my EBT kicked in. That wide range of foods that were given away was just mind-boggling. I got some chicken quarters (which were really appreciated), a bunch of containers of milk (actually too much for me), a little smashed up carrot cake muffins from Trader Joe's, some really fancy loving English cheese, two bags of raspberries and a bread bowl. Just all over the place. The biggest surprising thing was the Gaylord container full of 25 pounds of lentils. I'm guessing they got it from a food service place like a hotel or restaurant. Hardly anyone picked at it. I thought about it for a moment, but realized that I don't think I could even eat 25 pounds of lentils.
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Sep 27, 2015 03:05
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