I am begging the indulgence of the site owner to write about something that is near and dear to my heart: hunger relief, and helping the deserving poor with necessities.
We all like to rail away at welfare, as well as the program formerly known as food stamps, and all of the tax payer funded public assistance programs that truly do generate quite a bit of waste. Those programs really should be better monitored and controlled, and with modern inventory systems in grocery stores, this really is possible even if it is not done as thoroughly as it could be.
But, that does not change the fact that there really are people out there who are in need of assistance to make ends meet every month. By and large, the demographic group that takes advantage of not just public assistance for food purchases, but food pantries on the front lines is actually senior citizens on fixed incomes, many of whom are widows whose husbands’ pensions died with them.
Strange as it may sound to those of us who are well versed in the welfare queen stereotype, the truth is a bit more harsh. There are far fewer of them than the urban legends say there are.
Yes, there are people down on their luck, and women with children whose father(s) walked away, but there are still the elderly and the truly disabled who really depend on the hunger relief system. They do need to be cared for, and thanks to generous Americans that does happen in spades around the holidays.
One of the stops on my personal journey was working in a local food bank. What I learned when I was there was that food stamps are just for that: food. Arguing about what food is is permissible to purchase with funds from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program or SNAP is not the point here. What is is that many other household items are needed for civilized living, even for people in need. One of the items that was like gold to people in need is laundry detergent. The food bank where I worked once got a whole semi full of laundry detergent, and it had to be rationed, it was so coveted. Paper products were popular, as are consumable personal items.
All of it is needed on the front lines for people in need.
The other thing I learned about federal assistance for food is how few dollars are actually available per person. $194 a month for a single man or woman is the maximum one can receive in benefits at this time. That barely covers the basics when it comes to food – and that’s if you know what you’re doing in a kitchen. The food pantries make up the gap. (See the USDA’s page on SNAP eligibility here.)
Why I write today about this is that many church groups, and other organizations collect both giving baskets and canned goods at this time of the year to help the poor. The program my family participates in actually provides a list of what is needed and provides the box for it (and a big bag of laundry detergent pods), but for those who don’t have that, and who are just collecting or buying a few things for the local food pantry, what is needed to keep the people in need healthy is nutrient dense foods:
Hearty soups and stews, including chili
Canned meat and tuna
Canned vegetables
Canned fruit in its own juice
When taking items to a pantry, be sure they are unopened. Please, try to limit starches. This also goes for frozen food. Opened food, homegrown food, and prepared food may be taken at the door of the organization, but the food pantry by law cannot distribute it.
Across the nation, fresh foods are also made available to the poor thanks to the grocery industry, but this is limited. After all, the grocers still have to make a profit. What they do is pull meat on the sell by date and freeze it, and send produce that is still fresh, but might not quite look it to food banks equipped with commercial refrigeration. So long as it is consumed quickly, fresh foods do not go to waste.
Other items that are helpful, of course, are those personal items listed above. Remember, some of the people in need may well be looking for a job, and being hygienic will go a long way to getting the able bodied off the dole.
Thanks for reading and letting me bend some ears. It takes the entire system to keep the American poor fed, believe it or not.
A quick note on an organization called “Feeding America.” Feeding America is corporate America’s food bank system. The vast majority of cities in the country have just this one food bank to distribute donations from the corporate level. That was done very much on purpose. The “food producers” all prefer to deal with a single organization rather than an organic mish mosh of food banks to supply the pantries. QTreepers can guess why. How it works is the front line pantries belong to the food bank, and pay a membership fee for the donations from corporate America. (My hometown is one of the only cities in the nation to have two food banks.)
Giving, of course, is a deeply personal thing. What any of us gives to this cause is worthy. The thing is, the healthier we can keep the population in need, the less aid they will need in the long run. And that saves everyone money in the end.