read: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051124/ONTFOOD24/TPNational/Canada
read: http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/11/23/child-poverty051123.html
I know a lot of people who read my blog (or syndicate it) do have the resources, and already do donate. But I thought I would send out a message to encourage even more efforts. There are, unfortunately, a lot of people out there who rely on this resource for their and their families daily living, and most of us have the resources to help them out. If you don’t have the money, go and volunteer at your local soup kitchen or food bank, it is a rather fun and enlightening experience.
I have volunteered in a food bank before and a good rule of them with donating food is the following. They generally try to put one starch (pasta, etc.), and two vegetables or sauces (tomato sauce, beans) in each bag. Primarily they run out of pasta long before they run out of beans and such. So, if you donate try to provide pastas (KD, or just boxed pasta even, they will break it up there into individual servings if the box is too big.). Spam and meats are appreciated as well, but they are always nervous about giving them out because it is really a special treat and kinda off balances whoever gets it. (Albeit, when they receive a large shipment of canned meats they are the happiest people on the planet.) At the soup kitchen/food bank that I worked at a very long time ago, they tried to give one bag per person in the family, so if there were multiple children, they would get a bag for each child. They try to give basically enough food to help the family last a week. (pasta’s are high in carbs and calories, which are the most important part of a diet low in food.)
Having worked in the back of a food bank and packaged these little satchels of food, I can tell you that trivially they can run through an entire medium size warehouse of food in under a day. As we received a large shipment of excess food (enough to fill the backroom warehouse to capacity from one of hte local grocers when I was there and we still were running really really low when the end of the day came by. Albeit, the soup kitchen guests were treated like Gods when a wedding was cancelled and all of the food from the wedding was given to the soup kitchen.
Unfortunately, I am unaware of a soup kitchen in my region (and if there are anyone from KW who knows of a good one, let me know), but I still say if you can afford it, go and donate some food to your local foodbank (or even the university one for the poorer students). Every little bit really does help in that case.
Have fun,
…..Kelly John Rose…..