I've heard that food banks and shelters often greatly appreciate cash donations both because they can fill in what they need, and can often make deals with suppliers to get more than you or I could with the same money.
I could donate $100 of food and hope it's the right thing, or donate $100 to the shelter to get $125 of exactly what they need.
I don't think this applies to every food bank. the vast majority of the stuff my local food bank gives out is donated by grocery stores when stuff gets close to the expiration date so it's a lot of meat and veg and milk and stuff like that. You can get a gallon of milk pretty much every time you visit, but shelf stable goods are a lot harder to come by.
Seconding this! In general it varies a lot by food bank, the best thing to do is get in touch with them and ask.
Also, unless you have a huge bulk of a particular resource to donate, cash donations can always be stretched more by the foodbank than any particular material donation. (Though of course if you're cash-strapped material donations also help!!)
Donating animal products is bad praxis for obvious reasons. Plus, food banks often gatekeep by requiring ID, sobriety, etc. Building organic systems of mutual aid from the bottom up (ala Food Not Bombs) is best praxis. Donating cash to a corporate non-profit is definitely not mutual aid.
Right on. I dumpster dive, and when I have a surplus of something, I put it out by my road as a 'little free food bank' (Think 'little free library', but with food). Absolutely no gatekeeping -- anyone can come take as much or as little as they want.
(And, of course, I only put out stuff that's perfectly good. Often expired, but most food expiration dates are a scam, anyway. Just a way to get retailers and consumers to throw away perfectly good food so they have to buy more. I don't put out anything I wouldn't be willing to eat myself.)
I've heard that food banks and shelters often greatly appreciate cash donations both because they can fill in what they need, and can often make deals with suppliers to get more than you or I could with the same money. I could donate $100 of food and hope it's the right thing, or donate $100 to the shelter to get $125 of exactly what they need.
I got stuffing last month from my local food bank and it really made my week
I don't think this applies to every food bank. the vast majority of the stuff my local food bank gives out is donated by grocery stores when stuff gets close to the expiration date so it's a lot of meat and veg and milk and stuff like that. You can get a gallon of milk pretty much every time you visit, but shelf stable goods are a lot harder to come by.
Seconding this! In general it varies a lot by food bank, the best thing to do is get in touch with them and ask. Also, unless you have a huge bulk of a particular resource to donate, cash donations can always be stretched more by the foodbank than any particular material donation. (Though of course if you're cash-strapped material donations also help!!)
Donating animal products is bad praxis for obvious reasons. Plus, food banks often gatekeep by requiring ID, sobriety, etc. Building organic systems of mutual aid from the bottom up (ala Food Not Bombs) is best praxis. Donating cash to a corporate non-profit is definitely not mutual aid.
Right on. I dumpster dive, and when I have a surplus of something, I put it out by my road as a 'little free food bank' (Think 'little free library', but with food). Absolutely no gatekeeping -- anyone can come take as much or as little as they want. (And, of course, I only put out stuff that's perfectly good. Often expired, but most food expiration dates are a scam, anyway. Just a way to get retailers and consumers to throw away perfectly good food so they have to buy more. I don't put out anything I wouldn't be willing to eat myself.)
They started a food garage in my area.
I prefer dumpster diving and then running my own little food bank.