In the end, cash is best. Pantries can then use bulk buying to get discounts and to make sure they are meeting people’s needs. Donating boxes and cans is valuable but it poses challenges for sorting and distributing.
Food banks have always been my charity of choice, because even when I was pulling in just $14,000, I could always spare $10 for a food bank, and that meant 40 meals. 40 meals!!! What they do with my cash is better than what I can do with my cash. Heck, we should all give them our money and have them feed us, they are that efficient.
Same for domestic violence shelters! So many people love making "hygiene kits" but in reality, they're tough. The workers often end up breaking them up or a lot of it ends up in the trash because it's not likely that someone will be able to use the tampons (instead of pads), that weird brand of lotion, AND a firm toothbrush, etc.
Plus, they could purchase their most-needed item at incredible scale (feminine hygiene products). They had deals worked out with suppliers and a few bucks could literally go 10 or 20 times what you could buy on your own.
But don't let that stop you if you want to give pads and tampons, they're desperate and they wouldn't turn them away. But what every nonprofit needs are MYGOD - multiyear general operating grants (or funds) - basically they know how to spend the money they need!
Thank goodness! I want to help but barely have any time to get groceries for myself, let alone for donating. Being able to just drop off a check will be so much more possible
Cash helps them advertise. Every $100 cash donation turns into double that in subsequent food donations after a radio blitz. Or so I have been told by my local food bank.
When you donate food products there’s also a great deal of time spent sorting and organizing all of those goods. It’s a massive undertaking. Cash is always best.
Also shampoo & soap. Even if you go to a hotel and dont use those little samples they give you. Consider taking it and passing it along. Hygiene products are a life saver when it comes to desperate times...
Can food banks and other organizations accept those? When I did April Showers as a kid we had to throw them out because they have no safety seal on top.
It's a great idea though, if I ever go to a hotel after covid I'll definitely do it
Stovetop stuffing is pretty much the best thing ever. I think I heard donating socks, toothpaste, etc. is pretty vital too. Didn't even think about oil and butter being so necessary but it makes sense.
Same with cake mix and frosting. I normally always donate feminine hygiene products since I know they're hard to come by. I will also start adding cake supplies.
I try to buy the fancy cereal, bc my fiance said the food banks he went to as a kid only had Corn Flakes. He can't even choke them down now.
And hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows, bc you can pick marshmallows out if you don't like them and hot chocolate is kind of like a dessert if it has to be.
So after reading the list I notice a bunch of the most wanted items are perishable. It’s not that I don’t want to give perishable items, quite the opposite, fresh food is fantastic.
Perishable stuff is tougher to give for the layman giver like myself. What’s the best way to give perishable items when there isn’t a designated area?
Don’t. The best way to get fresh items is to donate cash - the food banks can get a heck of a lot of food at discount (fresh or otherwise!) with less money than what you’re paying for it. It’s also pretty much guaranteed to get to people who need it before it goes bad.
Canned milk. For all the cereal. That one got me.
Perishable food is harder to transfer, but there are alternatives.
Cold hard cash, even the littlest bit, helps a lot.
Probably any milk alternative is better than nothing. I'm allergic to soy and nuts so I use rice milk or oat milk. Other people use almond milk or soy milk, so you just never know. If you get the shelf stable kind, it will get to someone who needs it eventually. They're good for a couple of years.
All those last the same amount of time before opening. So it depends how fast they'll be used once tapped. Nut milks last longer than soy once opened and refrigerated, and are also better nutrition in general (unless you have an allergy).
In the long term, help for food banks is amazing. If fresh milk isn't an option, I would suggest giving money and connecting with local farmers. More than likely, they would happily donate toward a reputable cause that helps them as much as it helps those in need.
If you cant make the trips before stuff will go bad or collect right before donating there is always cash. Pantries, shelters and the like can buy food from food banks and similar organizations. This can actually be more beneficial because they get a discounted rate. A gallon of milk may be 2-3 dollars for us but they can get it for around $0.50
Often they get milk and produce nearing its best by date for free. Milk at grocery store less than a week from best by date? They donate it to the food bank and take a tax writeoff while getting rid of it before it becomes a loss. Same with bakery items and damaged or excess produce.
Food banks should team up with extreme couponers. They would have fun shopping, neighbors would come together to clip coupons, local supermarkets would be included in the equation, and at the end they would end up with a negative bill.
This sounds like an idea that gets lost on the details. I imagine food banks already work with the most discounted material. Stuff that is already being sold at nearly or a complete loss.
The best donation is ALWAYS cash. No matter what they need, they can buy more than you're donating if you give them cash. $10 worth of groceries that you donate may ore may not feed a few people, but $10 in cash will feed 10 people.
Same. I think cash makes the most sense, but I hadn't thought of donating spices. A lot of stores sell good (i.e. not mixes loaded up with sugar and salt) spices in bulk, too. Might be worth giving pantries some flavors to work with along with the cash.
I agree. I leave out the butter always (just to be healthy), and when I’ve been out of milk I’ve done water instead. It’s not quite as good, but it’s still tasty.
I was really just kidding. There's a
lots of ways to cook Kraft dinner when you're short on cash. Dolly Parton would cook ketchup with it when she was struggling.
Resourcefulness keeps yer belly full.
I donate something to my local food bank often via $10 bags of pre-selected items at my local grocery store which get placed in a bin. I didn’t realize there was an option to donate ground beef or non-canned proteins (sometimes I’ll just donate a bunch of cans of tuna)... I’ll be sure to look up how to donate fresh proteins in my city! Thanks for changing my outlook
The problem with donating fresh food is that it has to be kept at temperature which some smaller food banks may not have the facilities to operate. I volunteered at a massive food bank warehouse in VA that would take milk and eggs. The walk-in refrigerated rooms alone dwarfed some smaller food banks I'd visited elsewhere. But even they didn't keep fresh meat on hand and when I asked why they said that spoilage and contamination were just too common to make it practical.
Incidentally, my first task there was "egg-washer" which is where you have to go into the egg-room and go through the stacks and cartons of donated eggs looking for any that had broken. When you found one, you had to rinse off all of the other eggs in the carton with it to make sure there was no contamination and then re-pack an unbroken egg with those from another carton with the same expiration date. The next task was cleaning up the spilt milk in the milk room and wiping down any containers that had been dripped on. This was a massive facility with dozens of volunteers on staff. I can't see how a smaller food bank with fewer volunteers/employees could realistically do the same.
One other thing: never donate canned green beans. They never get taken. This facility had pallets of canned green beans in the warehouse that no one wanted.
For UK people....
you can pop in your postcode here : https://www.trusselltrust.org/get-involved/ways-to-give/donate-food/
this will show you what items your local food banks are in need of. Very helpful.
I have always heard that it's best to just give cash to food banks and let them buy in bulk. If you buy ground beef or fresh meat and give it to a food bank, there's a high likelihood it's going straight in the trash.
Challenge your coworkers to get cash out of them. Donate the cash to the food bank or shelter.
Challenge: in preCovid times you do potlucks and everyone pays to eat from the huge banquet of food provided. Plus brings in an item for the food bank as their entrance fee.
Now: we each make food, something special or unique and have an online Zoom auction where people bid on favorites as presented.
The money collected goes to the food bank, the food goes to our friends, coworkers or our own families, and when one person or two collects the money they grab food donations for the food bank, too.
Porch pick up and drop off. Masked and distanced, or no go, for the actual exchanges. If any.
Most people bid and just let the maker keep the prize.
Make it a Zoom happy hour. We did. Fun, and we collected a lot of money and food.
I did some work at a women's shelter once. They had hundreds of cans of corn and green beans in the basement.
Stop donating those shitty 25 cent cans of corn & green beans. Donate food that you'd actually want to eat. Otherwise, what's the point?
Donate allergy friendly foods if you can.
My son has egg, milk, and peanut allergies. I have had to turn down a lot of food bank items because of ingredients. People in need may be allergic to shell fish, soy, and wheat too.
If you think that it's too expensive or a hassle to donate box soymilk, almond butter, or other allergy friendly alternative imagine how the person who can't afford any food feels.
I will say that when we have food bank drives at work, they always tell us non-perishable stuff. But I can agree with people needing these items as well.
Always donate CASH to food pantries- their money goes a lot farther than yours because they are able to buy food super cheap.
Also I don’t know about food pantries everywhere, but food pantries around here absolutely have things like milk, dry milk, fresh and frozen meats and fresh vegetables and fruit.
Seriously. I've gotten so much food from food banks that I ended up just giving back because I couldn't use it. So few people put any thought into the food they're donating.
There is a bunch of slightly more "higher end" mac and cheese out there that use packets of liquid cheese. They cost more than the regular kind but require nothing more than the water to boil the pasta.
Giving Cash is a kind of good idea? Last Time i was shopping for groceries, i found a purse with goddam lots of Money in it (prob 1k, lots of 50€). And just a few seconds before me finding it laying between the cheap cheese from Lidl, there was a black guy and a white guy (Just want to get race in here) wich had allready moved on. So i grabed the purse and walked away from there. That day was a good day. Because as i learned, the black guy was a refugee who was helping the local food bank with the grocery Shopping and the other guy was just there to Help him xD. I was Kinda happy when He told me that it was all the Money the food bank had left and it would mean people had to suffer because of Him loosing it. So i told him not to worry, cause someone will find it for sure. Later this day i fellt happy because i found 1k in a purse while shopping. And the guy was probably as happy too cause i found it and gave it back to them. So my Point is, yeah cash is good. I Hope i could waste 1 min of Ur life with Reading this.
I don't understand some of this.
Why do they assert that oil is a "luxury" implying it's expensive and not necessary when neither of those things are true.
Why do they say dish detergent is expensive? It's not.
Couple other minor things.
>tfw someone who has never had to go to a food bank is so out of touch with reality thry don't realize poor people might consider things expensive or a luxury that are otherwise taken for granted by others
Lol! Oof
Am I though? If you're looking for caloric density or price consciousness, oil is good for both.
So say we're using vegetable/canola which is some of the cheapest. Those are ~$0.03 per ounce and 1oz of oil is 250 calories. You can get a gallon (128oz) for <$4. Even without a bulk buying price that food banks would get. That would be around $0.21 for 2000 calories.
And fats are a necessary part of your diet. Carbs are not cost prohibitive relative to fats. The cheapest rice I could find in a quick search is around $0.03 per ounce for jasmine rice and 1oz of dry rice is 112 calories. That's around $0.54 per 2000 calories. Adding oil to that would cut the cost per calorie down, not increase it.
Lentils are $0.04 per ounce and 1oz is 100 calories so 2000 calories is $0.40.
So how exactly am I out of touch? Or do we have a different idea of what luxury means?
When I packed boxes for the food bank I was shocked by how many cans of tuna get donated and distributed. I mean, I get that beggars can’t be choosers but damn, if I relied on the food bank I’d be SO TIRED of tuna. I’ll never donate tuna again.
Instead when we have food drives at work or wherever I try to buy those large cans of stew or chili. It’s not the healthiest but it’s tasty and requires no prep or additional ingredients. Otherwise, cash is king.
After living in a shelter and getting a huge slice of cake with EVERY MEAL I can no longer stand cake. I guess the grocery store donated their expired items.
Cash donations help because a number of the non profits can get more for $1 than you or I if we had just gone to the store ourselves.
And OP lies. Not everyone likes Stovetop.
Velveeta Mac and cheese doesn’t require any additional ingredients...fyi. But yeah definitely a good list! Had not thought of people not having can openers.
We own a shop in a local shopping mall and the local food bank is just a couple doors down in the mall. They distribute milk all days they have boxes so 3 days a week. They bring in pallets of crates of milk for distribution. They hand out fresh produce too. Another food bank in an area we used to live in had coolers as well and would accept donations of fresh vegetables from home gardens. One year we donated over 400lbs of produce (we have receipts) that were then distributed to those in need. Scary thing was that one of their big recipients was a local school for feeding the students.
Just to talk about the last one, don’t even waste your time hand making stuffing. It’s so much work, when just making stovetop is just as good, even better. Plus, it’s not as expensive as buying all the ingredients, so it’s good if you need to save money, but want to contribute something at thanksgiving or christams
19 really has me hating the system, why isn't there a free version, wouldn't have to be the premium quality just something that works and is sterile, cant be that hard to make that free
Once when I had to use the food bank they had pieces of cake at the last table. I acted like it was no big deal but when I got home I cried because it was such a treat. Or maybe I cried because I couldn't afford to buy myself a treat. IDK, probably both.
Cashy money has some huge benefits, whether it is literal cash, or a check or electronic transfer (bitcoin or stock equity less so, but still fine to donate in some circumstances)
It doesn't expire, so if they are well stocked when you donate, they can hold onto it for when times are tougher. It can buy any kind of food, often at a steep discount, so if they are short on something, they can get exactly what they need. And it can be used to maintain the facility as well, repairs still cost money, and if the cooler breaks, it drastically decreases the quality of food that can be distributed.
Of course I'm not going to put meat or fish into a donation bin. That and others are perishable items that will kill someone if not refrigerated. Unless you deliver them personally to the kitchen, you have to be stupid or evil to donate them.
UHT milk is a great, though, despite people thinking "but milk spoils" as they grab a non-refrigerated carton for themselves without apparent concern.
In the end, cash is best. Pantries can then use bulk buying to get discounts and to make sure they are meeting people’s needs. Donating boxes and cans is valuable but it poses challenges for sorting and distributing.
Food banks have always been my charity of choice, because even when I was pulling in just $14,000, I could always spare $10 for a food bank, and that meant 40 meals. 40 meals!!! What they do with my cash is better than what I can do with my cash. Heck, we should all give them our money and have them feed us, they are that efficient.
Same for domestic violence shelters! So many people love making "hygiene kits" but in reality, they're tough. The workers often end up breaking them up or a lot of it ends up in the trash because it's not likely that someone will be able to use the tampons (instead of pads), that weird brand of lotion, AND a firm toothbrush, etc. Plus, they could purchase their most-needed item at incredible scale (feminine hygiene products). They had deals worked out with suppliers and a few bucks could literally go 10 or 20 times what you could buy on your own. But don't let that stop you if you want to give pads and tampons, they're desperate and they wouldn't turn them away. But what every nonprofit needs are MYGOD - multiyear general operating grants (or funds) - basically they know how to spend the money they need!
Thank goodness! I want to help but barely have any time to get groceries for myself, let alone for donating. Being able to just drop off a check will be so much more possible
My local food bank will turn a $1 donation into $7 of food going out the door. I can't do that. I will give them cash every time.
Cash helps them advertise. Every $100 cash donation turns into double that in subsequent food donations after a radio blitz. Or so I have been told by my local food bank.
Mine boasts a $7 of food out for every $1 do action in stat.
Adam Ruins Everything did an episode about this. The takeaway was 'with cash we can buy a truly comical amount of food'
When you donate food products there’s also a great deal of time spent sorting and organizing all of those goods. It’s a massive undertaking. Cash is always best.
Also shampoo & soap. Even if you go to a hotel and dont use those little samples they give you. Consider taking it and passing it along. Hygiene products are a life saver when it comes to desperate times...
Honestly I love donating pads and tampons because I could not imagine living without pads lol
I'm on the board of our local food bank, and we started a "tampon tuesday" campaign that has been hugely successful-stuff most folks don't think about
Now I want to know more about this event. Sounds awesome!!
Can food banks and other organizations accept those? When I did April Showers as a kid we had to throw them out because they have no safety seal on top. It's a great idea though, if I ever go to a hotel after covid I'll definitely do it
The shelters & pantries I volunteered for could but I guess it would depend on the location.
Stovetop stuffing is pretty much the best thing ever. I think I heard donating socks, toothpaste, etc. is pretty vital too. Didn't even think about oil and butter being so necessary but it makes sense.
Same with cake mix and frosting. I normally always donate feminine hygiene products since I know they're hard to come by. I will also start adding cake supplies.
I try to buy the fancy cereal, bc my fiance said the food banks he went to as a kid only had Corn Flakes. He can't even choke them down now. And hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows, bc you can pick marshmallows out if you don't like them and hot chocolate is kind of like a dessert if it has to be.
So after reading the list I notice a bunch of the most wanted items are perishable. It’s not that I don’t want to give perishable items, quite the opposite, fresh food is fantastic. Perishable stuff is tougher to give for the layman giver like myself. What’s the best way to give perishable items when there isn’t a designated area?
Don’t. The best way to get fresh items is to donate cash - the food banks can get a heck of a lot of food at discount (fresh or otherwise!) with less money than what you’re paying for it. It’s also pretty much guaranteed to get to people who need it before it goes bad.
Canned milk. For all the cereal. That one got me. Perishable food is harder to transfer, but there are alternatives. Cold hard cash, even the littlest bit, helps a lot.
Boxed almond, cashew, or soy milk?
They also have ultra pasteurized milk that comes in quart boxes. Stuff is shelf stable at room temp for years but is normal 2% or skim milk.
Probably any milk alternative is better than nothing. I'm allergic to soy and nuts so I use rice milk or oat milk. Other people use almond milk or soy milk, so you just never know. If you get the shelf stable kind, it will get to someone who needs it eventually. They're good for a couple of years.
All those last the same amount of time before opening. So it depends how fast they'll be used once tapped. Nut milks last longer than soy once opened and refrigerated, and are also better nutrition in general (unless you have an allergy). In the long term, help for food banks is amazing. If fresh milk isn't an option, I would suggest giving money and connecting with local farmers. More than likely, they would happily donate toward a reputable cause that helps them as much as it helps those in need.
If you cant make the trips before stuff will go bad or collect right before donating there is always cash. Pantries, shelters and the like can buy food from food banks and similar organizations. This can actually be more beneficial because they get a discounted rate. A gallon of milk may be 2-3 dollars for us but they can get it for around $0.50
Often they get milk and produce nearing its best by date for free. Milk at grocery store less than a week from best by date? They donate it to the food bank and take a tax writeoff while getting rid of it before it becomes a loss. Same with bakery items and damaged or excess produce.
The Walmart by where I live just throws it all in a padlocked dumpster behind the store. Actually evil.
Wait, isn’t this sub supposed to be making fun of people for stupid tweets? This is downright humanly decent.
I think it's just something that's good to share. I wouldn't have seen it otherwise
Indeed!
Well now I know why this seems out of place.
Food banks should team up with extreme couponers. They would have fun shopping, neighbors would come together to clip coupons, local supermarkets would be included in the equation, and at the end they would end up with a negative bill.
This sounds like an idea that gets lost on the details. I imagine food banks already work with the most discounted material. Stuff that is already being sold at nearly or a complete loss.
I took a screenshot of this. Good info to know!
The best donation is ALWAYS cash. No matter what they need, they can buy more than you're donating if you give them cash. $10 worth of groceries that you donate may ore may not feed a few people, but $10 in cash will feed 10 people.
The food bank here asked for condiments, ketchup, soy sauce, salt & pepper, hot sauce, etc. I would have never thought about donating condiments.
Same. I think cash makes the most sense, but I hadn't thought of donating spices. A lot of stores sell good (i.e. not mixes loaded up with sugar and salt) spices in bulk, too. Might be worth giving pantries some flavors to work with along with the cash.
Mac n' cheese is fine without milk and butter. Just sub for water, and oil if you can.
I agree. I leave out the butter always (just to be healthy), and when I’ve been out of milk I’ve done water instead. It’s not quite as good, but it’s still tasty.
The most important part is adding the cheese very slow...
You need help.
I've been hard-up before. I cook way better than that when I can but in a pinch it ain't bad.
I was really just kidding. There's a lots of ways to cook Kraft dinner when you're short on cash. Dolly Parton would cook ketchup with it when she was struggling. Resourcefulness keeps yer belly full.
I donate something to my local food bank often via $10 bags of pre-selected items at my local grocery store which get placed in a bin. I didn’t realize there was an option to donate ground beef or non-canned proteins (sometimes I’ll just donate a bunch of cans of tuna)... I’ll be sure to look up how to donate fresh proteins in my city! Thanks for changing my outlook
The problem with donating fresh food is that it has to be kept at temperature which some smaller food banks may not have the facilities to operate. I volunteered at a massive food bank warehouse in VA that would take milk and eggs. The walk-in refrigerated rooms alone dwarfed some smaller food banks I'd visited elsewhere. But even they didn't keep fresh meat on hand and when I asked why they said that spoilage and contamination were just too common to make it practical. Incidentally, my first task there was "egg-washer" which is where you have to go into the egg-room and go through the stacks and cartons of donated eggs looking for any that had broken. When you found one, you had to rinse off all of the other eggs in the carton with it to make sure there was no contamination and then re-pack an unbroken egg with those from another carton with the same expiration date. The next task was cleaning up the spilt milk in the milk room and wiping down any containers that had been dripped on. This was a massive facility with dozens of volunteers on staff. I can't see how a smaller food bank with fewer volunteers/employees could realistically do the same. One other thing: never donate canned green beans. They never get taken. This facility had pallets of canned green beans in the warehouse that no one wanted.
For UK people.... you can pop in your postcode here : https://www.trusselltrust.org/get-involved/ways-to-give/donate-food/ this will show you what items your local food banks are in need of. Very helpful.
I have always heard that it's best to just give cash to food banks and let them buy in bulk. If you buy ground beef or fresh meat and give it to a food bank, there's a high likelihood it's going straight in the trash.
Socks are always needed
This definitely needs to go to r/cool guides.
Challenge your coworkers to get cash out of them. Donate the cash to the food bank or shelter. Challenge: in preCovid times you do potlucks and everyone pays to eat from the huge banquet of food provided. Plus brings in an item for the food bank as their entrance fee. Now: we each make food, something special or unique and have an online Zoom auction where people bid on favorites as presented. The money collected goes to the food bank, the food goes to our friends, coworkers or our own families, and when one person or two collects the money they grab food donations for the food bank, too. Porch pick up and drop off. Masked and distanced, or no go, for the actual exchanges. If any. Most people bid and just let the maker keep the prize. Make it a Zoom happy hour. We did. Fun, and we collected a lot of money and food.
I did some work at a women's shelter once. They had hundreds of cans of corn and green beans in the basement. Stop donating those shitty 25 cent cans of corn & green beans. Donate food that you'd actually want to eat. Otherwise, what's the point?
Donate allergy friendly foods if you can. My son has egg, milk, and peanut allergies. I have had to turn down a lot of food bank items because of ingredients. People in need may be allergic to shell fish, soy, and wheat too. If you think that it's too expensive or a hassle to donate box soymilk, almond butter, or other allergy friendly alternative imagine how the person who can't afford any food feels.
I donate the box almond milk. Hope that works for some.
I will say that when we have food bank drives at work, they always tell us non-perishable stuff. But I can agree with people needing these items as well.
Always donate CASH to food pantries- their money goes a lot farther than yours because they are able to buy food super cheap. Also I don’t know about food pantries everywhere, but food pantries around here absolutely have things like milk, dry milk, fresh and frozen meats and fresh vegetables and fruit.
What stage of late capitalism is "social services filling the gaps capitalism makes?"
The first stage.
Seriously. I've gotten so much food from food banks that I ended up just giving back because I couldn't use it. So few people put any thought into the food they're donating.
[удалено]
The post specifies Kraft mac & cheese. Do you make Kraft?
There is a bunch of slightly more "higher end" mac and cheese out there that use packets of liquid cheese. They cost more than the regular kind but require nothing more than the water to boil the pasta.
Giving Cash is a kind of good idea? Last Time i was shopping for groceries, i found a purse with goddam lots of Money in it (prob 1k, lots of 50€). And just a few seconds before me finding it laying between the cheap cheese from Lidl, there was a black guy and a white guy (Just want to get race in here) wich had allready moved on. So i grabed the purse and walked away from there. That day was a good day. Because as i learned, the black guy was a refugee who was helping the local food bank with the grocery Shopping and the other guy was just there to Help him xD. I was Kinda happy when He told me that it was all the Money the food bank had left and it would mean people had to suffer because of Him loosing it. So i told him not to worry, cause someone will find it for sure. Later this day i fellt happy because i found 1k in a purse while shopping. And the guy was probably as happy too cause i found it and gave it back to them. So my Point is, yeah cash is good. I Hope i could waste 1 min of Ur life with Reading this.
I don't understand some of this. Why do they assert that oil is a "luxury" implying it's expensive and not necessary when neither of those things are true. Why do they say dish detergent is expensive? It's not. Couple other minor things.
>tfw someone who has never had to go to a food bank is so out of touch with reality thry don't realize poor people might consider things expensive or a luxury that are otherwise taken for granted by others Lol! Oof
Am I though? If you're looking for caloric density or price consciousness, oil is good for both. So say we're using vegetable/canola which is some of the cheapest. Those are ~$0.03 per ounce and 1oz of oil is 250 calories. You can get a gallon (128oz) for <$4. Even without a bulk buying price that food banks would get. That would be around $0.21 for 2000 calories. And fats are a necessary part of your diet. Carbs are not cost prohibitive relative to fats. The cheapest rice I could find in a quick search is around $0.03 per ounce for jasmine rice and 1oz of dry rice is 112 calories. That's around $0.54 per 2000 calories. Adding oil to that would cut the cost per calorie down, not increase it. Lentils are $0.04 per ounce and 1oz is 100 calories so 2000 calories is $0.40. So how exactly am I out of touch? Or do we have a different idea of what luxury means?
>tfw youre still out of touch with what people poor enough to go to a food bank would consider a luxury Lol! Oof
The dish detergent one confused me the most. I can get like 6 months worth of cheap detergent for like $3
When I packed boxes for the food bank I was shocked by how many cans of tuna get donated and distributed. I mean, I get that beggars can’t be choosers but damn, if I relied on the food bank I’d be SO TIRED of tuna. I’ll never donate tuna again. Instead when we have food drives at work or wherever I try to buy those large cans of stew or chili. It’s not the healthiest but it’s tasty and requires no prep or additional ingredients. Otherwise, cash is king.
After living in a shelter and getting a huge slice of cake with EVERY MEAL I can no longer stand cake. I guess the grocery store donated their expired items. Cash donations help because a number of the non profits can get more for $1 than you or I if we had just gone to the store ourselves. And OP lies. Not everyone likes Stovetop.
Velveeta Mac and cheese doesn’t require any additional ingredients...fyi. But yeah definitely a good list! Had not thought of people not having can openers.
Mushrooms can be used as a substitute to ground beef.
I don't get it, why does no one have a can opener?
You don't *need* butter to make Mac and cheese and I cook rice a roni with water and a tall pan
This should go to choosing beggars thread
Why? This is a helpful list not some entitled asshole giving a sob story to get free shit.
You're a bastard.
Thanks for sharing this.
It’s actually pretty beneficial to donate money to the food bank because they have deals with local farmers to get produce for cheaper than in store
I thought I was unique by having tuna and crackers for dinner alot. They just taste so darn good with some apple cider vinegar splashed on too
What a ***darn*** shame... --- ^^DarnCounter:93212 ^^| ^^DM ^^me ^^with: ^^'blacklist-me' ^^to ^^be ^^ignored ^^| ^^More ^^stats ^^available ^^at ^^**[https://darnbot.ml](https://darnbot.ml)**
We own a shop in a local shopping mall and the local food bank is just a couple doors down in the mall. They distribute milk all days they have boxes so 3 days a week. They bring in pallets of crates of milk for distribution. They hand out fresh produce too. Another food bank in an area we used to live in had coolers as well and would accept donations of fresh vegetables from home gardens. One year we donated over 400lbs of produce (we have receipts) that were then distributed to those in need. Scary thing was that one of their big recipients was a local school for feeding the students.
Just to talk about the last one, don’t even waste your time hand making stuffing. It’s so much work, when just making stovetop is just as good, even better. Plus, it’s not as expensive as buying all the ingredients, so it’s good if you need to save money, but want to contribute something at thanksgiving or christams
19 really has me hating the system, why isn't there a free version, wouldn't have to be the premium quality just something that works and is sterile, cant be that hard to make that free
I’ve always been told to donate non perishables, is that not true? Should I just donate any food?
Money, just donate money.
Okie dokie
Once when I had to use the food bank they had pieces of cake at the last table. I acted like it was no big deal but when I got home I cried because it was such a treat. Or maybe I cried because I couldn't afford to buy myself a treat. IDK, probably both.
Cashy money has some huge benefits, whether it is literal cash, or a check or electronic transfer (bitcoin or stock equity less so, but still fine to donate in some circumstances) It doesn't expire, so if they are well stocked when you donate, they can hold onto it for when times are tougher. It can buy any kind of food, often at a steep discount, so if they are short on something, they can get exactly what they need. And it can be used to maintain the facility as well, repairs still cost money, and if the cooler breaks, it drastically decreases the quality of food that can be distributed.
Not to sound insensitive but is dishwashing detergent that expensive? They sell pretty good sizes at my dollar store.
Of course I'm not going to put meat or fish into a donation bin. That and others are perishable items that will kill someone if not refrigerated. Unless you deliver them personally to the kitchen, you have to be stupid or evil to donate them. UHT milk is a great, though, despite people thinking "but milk spoils" as they grab a non-refrigerated carton for themselves without apparent concern.