How can we be kind to each other, to other creatures, and to the world?
For the love of God, stop donating canned goods to the food bank
For the love of God, stop donating canned goods to the food bank
By Tristin Hopper, National Post It's one of Canada's most cherished holiday practices, and it may also be unwittingly robbing resources from some of Canada's most important charities. You've seen it at the office. You've seen it at the library. You've seen it at your kids' Christmas recital.
Yes... but no.
It really depends on the food bank. It also really depends on the food donated. The one I volunteered at actually relied on the canned food drives. It was a food and clothing bank, had two paid workers. Money donated went mostly to the following things: cost of the facility -- there was a warehouse, a refrigerated food section, a (supervised) play area for kids to be left in while their parents went through and got food and clothes, computers for volunteers to check people in and help them get set up with things like food stamps and medicaid. There was also a very small office in the back and a small breakroom for volunteers. This was a not small space, and all of these things cost money. The rest of the money went for things like bulk bags of rice and beans, and then large flats of peanut butter and tuna.
This particular food bank was an interfaith food bank. At the end of summer is Rosh Hashanah, when a lot of the synagogues have big drives. Then midwinter the churches do the Christmas drives. And then springtime comes and both the synagogues and churches do Easter/Passover drives. And those drives hopefully last through the summer. Towards the end of summer things get scary and that's when the money comes in handy the most.
Would pure monetary donations be more useful? IDK. It would certainly be more useful than squid. The way this was set up, it was more like a supermarket, except for things like the big bags of rice and beans, which were parcelled out into smaller bags, people picked out what they needed in particular. Refrigerated stuff was put into a family-size specific box. (You have five people in your family? You get this many fresh veggies, this much milk, etc...)
So check with the food bank in question and ask what they'd rather have.




Yeah the problem isn't the canned foods, the problem is people using a food bank as a way of dumping the stuff they don't want to use on someone else while convincing themselves they're benefitting humanity as a result.
Some canned food drives provide a list of things they can actually use. Buy stuff on that list. Don't use charities as a guilt-assuaging garbage bin.
For sure. I know the things we needed were often things that people don't think about. Because it wasn't just a food bank, when we had them, in the clothing section (which we took donations for all year round) we also gave out toiletries, so those were always on our list. When I don't get a list, I always give baby formula and baby food. Pasta is another one that's fairly inexpensive and food banks like because they tend to have a crapton of tomato sauce.
Avoid canned peas, creamed corn and canned pineapple.
Hm, any particular reason to avoid those? Is it just because they're things that people don't generally need? They seem like the sort of stuff that would be useful to a lot of people (although granted I'd only use creamed corn of the three).
oh and what I donate is the exact same stuff I use normally - canned beans and chickpeas, jarred pasta sauce, dry pasta, canned soup, etc.
Because they're donated en masse. Tomato sauce is as well, but people will actually use it. In the warehouse in back of the "shopping" section, we had one wall full of canned pineapple. Other canned fruits put together didn't get their own wall. It doesn't go very fast in comparison. I think of all the canned corns, people tend to grab creamed corn last. And I don't know why the canned peas don't go fast, they just don't. Maybe it's a thing people just throw in when they're cleaning out their pantry or they're cheaper than other canned veggies? I really don't know, but we had a TON of canned peas. Of the three, I'd say those are the least bad.
So what you're saying is, if I ever find myself in need of a food bank's services I'll basically have the pick of the litter when it comes to canned pineapple?
This giphy made me laugh. Best response for canned pineapple ever!
I freaking love canned pineapple. Frozen pizza + canned pineapple = An awesome night for me.
But, yeah, I'll keep in mind not to donate any unless my local food bank specifically asks for it.
I'm allergic to pineapple, so I will give you all of mine.
A month ago, while helping a local food bank through its canned food backlog, I found one that expired in 2007. Luckily only about 1% were expired. Excess cans included canned tomato sauce and mixed fruit. I ought to look into the regional food bank service in my area for more information.
oh yeah the "I'm using this to throw out expired food that I'm not going to use myself" is especially reprehensible. Like, it's saying that "the poors" will eat anything and don't care about stuff being rancid.
Yeah. Throwing in things like quinoa and couscous is always cool. We also liked getting easy mac and stuff kids could make on their own, because we knew a lot of kids would be cooking this stuff without parental supervision because of circumstances.
I remember sitting with a group of my students going through the backlog and getting rid of horribly dented and expired cans. Ugh.
I know we discussed this at length previously so thanks for taking the time to write this up!
Having used the food bank before when life was... let's say "interesting"... It is something I try to donate to a few times per year at least when I am able.
In the US, my observation is that well-meaning people fall into our cultural tropes about charity, and help, then think accordingly. In other words, people worry more about hypocrisy and aggrievement related to a charity (or the manner an individual chooses to engage with a charity), rather than the end-result of the charitable work. If an organization spends 'too much' on marketing, the organization is bad. If they 'don't want my help/turn their nose up' to my help, the organization is bad.
It puts charities and philanthropic groups into binds, because (as with many things) people think they understand how this stuff works much more than they actually understand how this stuff works.
Yeah, "overhead" is a dirty word in charity circles. Paying for facilities, pens, paper, marketing, or any sort of actual employees is horrible.
... and, to bring it full circle, I think some people may get that impression because they organize or participated in a canned food drive once a few years back, and did it with all volunteers.
I wonder if there's some savvy way to like...monetize the weird and expired stuff. Like turn it into an internet auction with proceeds to that food bank. Well, there's probably laws around expired food. Maybe a fund drive to drop the canned octopus from the highest height.
I used to extreme coupon and donate the stuff, mostly toiletries. But their buyers could probably get stuff cheaper because it's not as easy to really "extreme" coupon anymore.
Depending on where you live, you might be able to find someone who wants the silkworm pupa and canned octopus. An exchange would be nice. People in neighborhood/city A aren't looking for this, but people in neighborhood/city B can't seem to get it. Any volunteers with a minivan driving from A to B? As for expired stuff, supermarkets will give things that have 'expired' to food banks. There's actually a whole code for the shelf life of something past its expiration date and when it's actually bad. Baby food and formula are the only things that are insta-throwaways. (For non-refrigerated stuff. Refrigerated stuff has a different shelf-life code. And bakery stuff has another one.)
Agreed. Perfect description attached, fluffy.
THIS!