Giving to the Food Bank?

[scrapperjade]

I know a lot of you are teaching your kids to donate to charity or church, but do any of you donate to the Food Bank? I always intend to, but I rarely remember... it's quite sad. I feel like I *should* be giving to it, because my DH and I can always afford our groceries (and I feel very lucky and grateful for it), but I know that some out there wonder where there next meal to feed their kids is going to come from.

The reason I started thinking that was because a couple weeks ago, there was a Justin Bieber concert in the city closest to me and they had a contest to win backstage passes. Whatever kid brought in the most donations for the Food Bank would get the coveted pass. Well, they showed it on the news, and people were bringing in CRATES of stuff. Great for the Food Bank, but I feel that it was the wrong message to send to kids. Like "You should give to the Food Bank, but only if YOU get something out of it". I don't know if any of them would ever donate again, if they didn't get a prize or reward for it, you know?

I want to teach my daughter that we should give generously to others that don't have what we have. From the heart, because we care about people, not because we can get something out of it. Next time we go shopping, I'm stocking up on goods that I can donate!

[NeverendingJen]

every year when they do the mailbox donations we clean out our pantry to donate.

[scrapperjade]

every year when they do the mailbox donations we clean out our pantry to donate.

That's awesome! They don't have a program like that where I live. I just take my pantry items to the city when we go and put it in the Food Bank Donations box at the grocery store.

[kbbeale]

Why not physically take your children to a shelter to donate so they can actually see where their donations are going? I know the visual thing helps my children understand that there are people that are less fortunate than us and dont have a place to call home. I dont know if this is allowed, but worth looking into.

Kristen

[scrapperjade]

I like that idea too Kristen! My DD is only 2.5, but I might do this in a couple years when she's older!

[pewtertm]

Our church has a food pantry (food bank) that we donate to.

[KyRainbow]

We live in a college town, and the Lamda Chi Alpha fraternity does a food drive every year where they will come and pick up whatever donations you have for the food bank, and we do that one. We also do the one done by the USPS where they pick up bags of food when they deliver your mail. Casey's school also does two food drives a year, one at Thanksgiving and one at Easter, which we always send a bag of food in for. We also participate in the school supply drive every summer (which is also done by one of the local fraternities). For each one I take Casey to the store and let her pick out what grocery (or school supply) items she wants to donate. (I usually spend about $10 for each one)

[newfiemountiewife]

A couple of Christmases ago, we asked a local church if they knew a deserving family. We bought for them some gifts, a full pantry of groceries, a ham and a turkey. It was the most fulfilled and wonderful I've felt in my whole life. The kids felt amazing too, you could tell they did. They felt so happy to have given so much to someone who really needed it.

I think in this day and age, where a lot of kids feel so entitled, you might have to do stuff like the Beiber concert to get what you need. I think it's lame, but it's unfortunately how a lot of kids are being raised these days.

[*Celeste*]

we have two or three food drives a year at school. i also write a check for food share for the annual walk that my company sponsors. the boy scouts also collect cans at meetings and work at thanksgiving asks for turkey donations and cash. we do - but i'm not sure they are learning why.

[CA Dreamer]

Every year, we do Scouting for Food. We get truckloads of food(canned and dry goods).

Various times a year, we have a canned food drive at one of our cub scout pack meetings. Just a low key thing. we ask every scout to bring a can to the meeting.

The food pantries need food all the time, but usually only get solid donations at the holiday times. This is especially true at the ones that serve sack lunches to kids in the summer. Sometimes, the kids only get their hot lunches at school, so when school is out, they don't get fed.

For the women's shelter in the town over, we also do 'laundry baskets' where each den fills it with household basics--cleaners, dish and laundry soap, paper towels, sponges, dish towels, toiletries(shampoo, toothpaste, tooth brushes, soap, body wash), maybe bath towels wash cloths, pillow cases and packages of socks. This shelter helps women and kids set up long term temporary housing, so the baskets go towards making a house a home.

At school, each classroom adopts a family during the holiday season. Usually presents(the families supply sizes and a wish list) and food, maybe some gift cards too. This works out well. The kids get to help wrap and see the truck loaded up.

[Darcy Baldwin]

And those of us who work at the food pantry thank you :)

Our church runs a pretty large food pantry in a fairly affluent suburb (surprisingly, we're really busy), and we're always short on food. Right now, our shelves are fairly empty. We can always use donations, especially NOT around the major holidays, but appreciate whatever you choose to donate!

The concert thing, while lame, will benefit a lot of people, and I'm glad whoever was running the promotion thought of it, though I do wish the parents will follow up with the kids to do more. And it does help for the kids to SEE where their food is going. We regularly bring kids in through ours to see where the food is and how it is given out. It helps that circle of giving.

[scrapperjade]

I agree Darcy - the Food Bank definitely benefitted from the donations from the concert - and at a time when their shelves were probably pretty bare.

One of the radio stations has a contest every year around this time to "Fill A Bus for Food Bank". They get a city bus (an old one maybe?), park it out front their office, and start going crazy with contests & prizes and try to fill that sucker up. And they do it, every year. It will be stacked FULL of donations!! Some years they get so much that they can't fit any more in, and need to set up locking storage bins outside!

Darcy - as a worker at the food bank - what kind of items do you find are often short, or would be appreciated most?? Are baby food items & formula needed a lot? I signed up for every free can of formula I could get my hands on (because I'm expecting), and as they start coming in, I'm donating them... if I need some when the time comes, I'll buy my formula, but I plan on exclusively breast feeding. I got the samples for donating purposes, lol.

[Darcy Baldwin]

For us, formula isn't such a big item because they can get that through the government, but diapers and wipes are always in high demand. Cooking oil, sugar, instant meals (stuff in a can kids can pop open and eat), pancake mix and syrup are some of our high demand foods.

[scrapperjade]

Good to know Darcy! Thanks so much!

[CA Dreamer]

Cooking oil, sugar, instant meals (stuff in a can kids can pop open and eat), pancake mix and syrup are some of our high demand foods.

Pancake mix and syrup--what a great idea! I will add that to our lists too

We also have requests for rice or pasta as many meals can be built around it. Along with canned meats(tuna, chicken). Those mac and cheese microwavable things are popular. The mac and cheese boxes are actually expensive to make as you have to have milk and butter/margarine on hand. Juice boxes or small cans have been requested as they are shelf stable for a long time. Also, those Nesquik shelf stable chocolate milk. And, canned soups are always requested.

For our scouting for food event, we always take the kids to the truck loading so that they can see how much is collected when everyone works together.

[clearskies]

We don't donate to the local food bank, but we do give to the soup kitchen. Everytime I'm at Costco I pick up extra produce and DS helps me carry it in to the kitchen. (He's 3.) He gets to see exactly where it goes and who it helps and I get the opportunity to talk about giving to others. :)

[Stacey42]

We have a local food closet I donate to twice a year when I clean my pantry out. Then there are food drives the food bank has where they make it easy to donate. They put donation bins in the supermarkets. I buy my groceries, plus then I'll buy whatever is on sale or I have coupons for that is good for the food bank (they don't take cold stuff like cheese or veggies at the stores) plus any BOGOs that might apply to my purchases. I can get the stuff bagged seperately and leave it in the box on my way out. I take the boys with me and have them pick out cereals and canned goods having them think about what they would like to recieve. I always end up with Jello pudding for the food bank when the boys are with me.

[julifish]

We donate every year when the post office does their collection. Last year I organized a food donation at work right between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I took a few boxes full of food to a local group that distributes to the needy. I had my daughters' help me pick out what we should donate. We also donated to the elementary school's drive at Christmas. The school gives boxes to needy families at the school along with gifts for the children (we adopted a little girl last year too).

I'll have to say that the food donation was easy for my kids. The adopting a little girl and buying gifts for her was the hard part. I bought a lot of things the day after Thanksgiving for my kids (things we really didn't *need*). I had the girls go through a pick out things for this little girl that wanted for a few trendy pieces of clothes, underwear, socks, a jacket...no toys. My girls argued with me about having to give up things I bought for them so when we talked about the fact that this little girl only wanted things that were really basic they were really fast to give everything to the little girl and wanted to go buy more.

Maybe this year we'll go to a soup kitchen or a food pantry and donate our time. My oldest is really emotional so I'm not sure she can handle an actual soup kitchen. Helping organize in a food pantry might be a better place to start.

[scrap2day]

We're lucky. Our local grocery has a bin year round where you can drop off items. You can also drop off items at church and someone takes them to the food pantry every two weeks, I think. The closest food pantry is open one day a week but they take perishables which is nice.

To make it a "teaching moment" I'd tell the kids that some families don't have enough food to eat and that sometimes they don't get to eat dinner because there is no food at their house. Then I would take the kids to the store with me and have them help pick out the items that they might like to eat. Then I would tell them that there are many ways we can help those families. I would probably have them drop a couple things in the bin at the grocery. Then have them take a small bag of stuff to drop at church. Then try to make a plan to actually take them over to the food pantry to drop stuff off so they could see where it all goes.

I would only do all of the above because it is really easy for us to donate here and I would want them to make the connection that their donation gets to people in need.

I used to live in a town where it was very difficult to find a place to donate but I knew the need was great. None of the groceries had bins (even during the holidays). It was actually very frustrating. That would be my biggest recommendation if groceries would collect and then give to local pantries it might be easier to keep them stocked year round.