MONEY. WE WANT MONEY. MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY. WE CAN DO SO MUCH WITH IT. WE HAVE ACCESS TO DEALS YOU COULD NEVER. MONEY
That aside.
I’m only going to talk about food items but if your food bank takes personal items, a lot of times diapers, feminine hygiene products, etc, are very very welcome.
1) Canned chicken and beef
looooooove this stuff. It’s expensive, it lasts forever, it tastes good and it can be used a variety of ways. This stuff is fucking catnip to food banks, it’s so hard for us to provide proteins.
2) Fancy nut butters
Peanut butter is a standby for food banks as a shelf-stable inexpensive protein, but if we have a family with a kid with a peanut allergy that’s not going to work. Non-peanut butters are expensive and it’s something we hardly ever see donated. (we also like peanut butter, but that’s easier for us to buy ourselves than non-peanut butters)
3) Canned or packaged tuna
You may notice a trend here in shelf-stable proteins. And yeah. That’s basically it, so I’m not going to keep harping on it. But this stuff is a godsend.
4) Easy breakfast things for kids (Granola bars, instant oatmeal, and the like)
Whatever Donald Trump tells you, most people who get food from food banks are actually working their asses off and so they have to leave Obama to raise their baby or whatever, and they don’t have a lot of time in the morning. Things like this that kids can make for themselves are expensive. (Another trend you may be noticing–donate shit that costs a lot of money. That helps us more than all the shitty green bean cans in the world) But they are so helpful for busy working families where the parents may not have a set schedule and sometimes little Amanda is making her own breakfast before she runs off to school. Don’t let kids go to school hungry.
5) Shelf-stable juice
This is one people never think of! But if you show up with a bunch of (preferably reduced sugar stuff) bottles of juice at my door, oh man, you are gonna get so many check mark and okay hand emoticons. This stuff is great for kids, and it doesn’t require refrigeration until it’s opened, so it works great for food drives.
SPEAKING OF FOOD INSECURITY.
FOR MY FELLOW EAGLE FUCKERS, THIS SATURDAY, MAY 14th, IS THE STAMP OUT HUNGER FOOD DRIVE
The postal service will come pick up food left by mailboxes and in post offices and deliver it to your local banks. This is a list of stuff we REALLY want and need, please take the time to read it and consider donating YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO GO ANYWHERE
IMPORTANT THINGS TO KNOW
GOOD THINGS TO DO
Also: Food banks! It’s summer & kids are out of school soon, which means that for a lot of food insecure families, 2 meals a day are not necessarily offered. There are meal programs in some places, but not everywhere. People get hungry year round, not just over “the holidays.”
Money. Tampons. Diapers. The stuff listed above. Consider sending a small $ donation every month to your local food bank. It’s not a huge gesture, but the family down the street with both parents out of work will feel it.
see if your local grocery store has a partnership with a food bank; sometimes they put together package deals based on what the food bank needs. you buy a bag of groceries they picked out, and they deliver it.
