Member-only story
How to Dazzle Your Local Food Bank
…By Not Being a Jerk
It’s Giving Season. The Salvation Army is ringing bells all over town. The turkey drives are happening. The fliers are coming home from schools and community groups to “fill the basket” and help those less fortunate.
It’s a wonderful thing about humankind, that we want to lend a hand and be good to our fellow man. It truly is.
But recently, I’ve seen a couple of handy-dandy lists in circulation about what is and is not appropriate to give to a local food bank or pantry, and it kind of weirds me out. I suppose it didn’t dawn on me that we needed such a list. But, alas, we did. Except that when I read some of the lists, they were WAY off-base.
How do I know?
I know because starting in March of 2020, and lasting all the way through today, I’ve been volunteering, at first daily (you read that right) and now weekly, at a great little place here in Baltimore that serves up hot meals and bags of groceries to 150 families in the Southeast neighborhood.
I’ve gotten a really cool close-up view. I don’t just get to see what goes out the door arbitrarily; I get to see what families actually want.
We partner with Amazon, who is partnered with Whole Foods, and we take delivery of their unused items, which vary week to week…
