A Short Guide To Christmas Giving…
So. You’d like to participate in the season of giving, but you don’t know how. You vaguely remember bringing cans to school, but either you don’t have children who can be your proxies, or your children’s school no longer does a canned food drive. What should you do? How can you give? Are there organizations, or should you just go out there and do it yourself? Some answers, for people who need help, helping.
1. Cans or cash?
Cash. Cash, every time. The fact is, no Food Bank out there really needs your already purchased goods, because any Food Bank out there does all their own food acquisition, has a menu planner, and is buying on a bulk level you probably aren’t capable of supplying (unless you happen to be a farmer) for a population larger than you probably estimate. Cash allows Food Banks and other orgs to keep moving forward, expand and diversify their menus, and also advocate so that the systemic change needed make Food Banks obsolete, one day comes to pass. If you donate cans or other pre-purchased good to the Food Bank, they won’t go to waste, but will be put in “The Store”, which is basically a small grocery store maintained by a Food Bank that sells packaged goods at a small mark up (less than an actual grocery store) to membership orgs (usually other non-profits) as another way to raise revenue. Cut out the middle man, give cash, especially at the holidays.
2. Food Bank or Food Pantry? WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?
You may have heard of a “Food Pantry.” A Pantry is basically a smaller Food Bank (and more often than not is supplied by a Food Bank) that is usually run by a community organization like a church or a school, vs. a Food Bank which is a county-wide organization, and government subsidied. The pantry usually functions as a direct to participant service, where whatever goes in, is redistributed by the curating organization, either to individual members, or immediate zones of impact (i.e. the local neighborhood). Cans and smaller donations, if that’s what you want to do, are usually better off going to something like this as pantries usually serve 100 people or less in any given week (Food Banks serve in the tens of thousands). FYI, unless they personally maintain a pantry, when your school or church or local fire department does a canned good drive, they are almost always turning over these goods to a Food Bank, which in turn then turns them over… to a Food Pantry. Cut out the middle man, give cash, especially at the holidays.
3. Meals on Wheels vs. The Food Bank vs. Glide/Soup Kitchens
First, all of these orgs are really good orgs, so this isn’t a contest, just a quick way to illustrate the three basic ways we feed underserved populations. Food Banks collect and store staples- from pasta to potatoes- and then redistribute them in the form of bags of groceries, NOT MEALS, so Food Banks serve best people who have access to kitchens and the ability to cook, or organizations that turn the groceries into food- like, for instance, Glide, which then essentially opens a “soup kitchen”, ie. serves a fully prepared meal at its facility to whoever shows up and waits in line. Meals on Wheels delivers fully cooked meals, often on behalf of other orgs, usually to participants who can’t go to a place serving, or for whom it would be a burden (i.e. people with disabilities, seniors, single parents with children under three). In the case of Meals on Wheels, cash buys gas usually, but some bigger branches will also have their own meal prep kitchens, as the one in San Francisco does. In smaller communities, Meals on Wheels usually partners with local restaurants.
4. Okay, so cash but… how will I know where the cash is going?
How do you know where that canned good is going? The fact is, you don’t. And you don’t need to. You donate to an organization because you trust that organization to know what the community needs and the best way to get it to them. Please don’t donate to organizations you haven’t vetted! But once you have vetted them, please trust them to do their jobs. That said, most places will allow you to have SOME control of your donation, choosing which program it goes to for instance, if the org has multiple programs, or whether you want it to support direct impact ground work or political advocacy or operations, etc. If supporting your neighborhood specifically is more your speed then I suggest finding a pantry or contacting your local school/church as they will almost certainly know who runs the neighborhood programs (assuming it’s not them) and how to get involved. But at the end of the day, no, you really don’t know where your cash is going, or your cans, unless you are personally giving it to someone and watching what they do with it, and get receipts. You got time for that? Because I don't.
5. Well, what if I like… bought like ten $50 Safeway Gift cards and handed them out to homeless people.
I mean… awesome. Please do that instead of making them sandwiches in your home and then passing those out. NOT THAT THAT ISN’T A LOVELY IDEA, but it’s... not a great idea. It’s also a health code violation in most cities, and for good reason. I don't know where your kitchen is and if it meets health code and homeless people shouldn't have to worry about potential botchalism ontop of everything else. Besides, unless you’re planning to do that every week for the next year… it’s also pretty performative. Stick to the gift cards. Only to be honest, $50 at a grocery store buys you jack these days. Don’t get me wrong, I will happily take all the $50 gift cards I can get, but a $50 donation to a Food Bank goes so much further because food purchased in bulk (and not like… 100 potatoes, we’re talking like 10,000 at a time) is MUCH MUCH CHEAPER, especially when it has no retail component. So while $50 gift cards are nice for friends and family in need, or just as gifts, if you want to maximize the impact of your donation, donate to an org. Every time. $50 once a year to a Food Bank goes farther that $50 once a year to a single person.
6. I’ve heard that sometimes people will get donations from Food Banks or Meals on Wheels and they don’t deserve them because they aren’t like… starving.
Um… okay. This one is… always hard for me. Mostly because I want to take your hands in mine, look sincerely into your eyes, and ask you, “Why do you think you get to decide who does and does not deserve assistance, and especially food? Who or what hurt you so badly that you would think such a thing?” but instead I have to try to come up with some kind of “hard proof” around how the vast bulk of donations are used the way they are intended, most people who experience food insecurity are still able to pay rent or meet other bills the problem is they often do it by not buying food, and then remind you that helping people not become utterly destitute is long term better economics than helping them when they have hit rock bottom in that same way that it costs less to give people PrEP than it does to have them get HIV, or providing low incoming housing is more cost effective than building homeless shelters (which does not mean we don't need homeless shelters, we absolutely do until we start providing housing). Broadly speaking, Americans have an aversion to helping out- we prefer to give advice- because they frequently suffer from delusions of worthiness. We live in a scarcity mentality that tells us we can never have enough, and so when we have more than enough, we are less inclined to share, and when our brains search for a reason why we shouldn’t (because underneath the lizard brain there is a deeper magic that knows we're messing something up here and feels shitty about it) our brains will usually settle on some version of “we deserve what we have” and thus, by the laws of some Whatever (we made it up no matter what it's called) someone else deserves what they didn’t get (but not us, we never deserve anything but the good stuff we get). The fact is, all humans deserve food, shelter, water, air, clothing, health care… they just do. And if you can’t understand that, or don’t understand how whatever you’ve done to deserve all that you have is almost certainly as much blind luck and There-But-For-The-Grace-Of-God as it is hard work and good strategy (and it can be all those things, I'm not saying you didn't work hard and think smart and shouldn't reap those rewards)… then let’s be honest, we’re not actually having this conversation because you never would have read this far.
7. But I've heard they'll even sell the donations to other poor people or use them TO BUY DRUGS.
Yeah, I mean... this happens. People will find a way to game a system, that's just how people be, but I'd point out that most systems are gamed by people whose goals are either survival or maximizing profit. The later group sets its site much higher than a weekly bag of groceries. And the former group... baby, as I see it, you need to sell .11 cents worth of potatoes to buy diapers or lipstick or video games or crack... then you're in a worse place than I and I should spend more time being thankful and less time trying to control your life. At the end of the day, if you're going to give, you need to do so without requiring ownership of whoever receives your gift. It is just that simple.
8. Look… I’m not a bad person, maybe I’m just not in a place to give money right now. Mentally, emotionally, or financially. Is there something else I can do?
Always. Get down here and unload this truck. Pack that bag. Deliver it. Find out where you can lend a hand, or a voice. Man that call center. Write that letter. Just do something.
Do something.
9. But I don't want to. I'm tired. It's a terrible world. I hate people. I'm heartbroken. I'm sick. I'm old. I'm dying. I died.
I know. Me too. And you should practice self-care. I don't, but I hear it can really help you help others.
If it's not your moment to step in, then it's not. I tend to believe we know when we're being called upon. I definitely did. I mean, it certainly helped that it was literally happening on my doorstep but when it happened it was the loudest noise I'd ever heard and it said, "Not on your watch." I got lucky because the door opened and then opened again. That might not happen for you, or it might not happen the same way.
There are periods in our lives, when the best way to help, is to not contribute to the burden. Being one less person who needs assistance, is a kind of assistance. So is supporting the people who are doing the work. Helping us practice self-care. And in the end, everything that helps, helps.
10. All I have is this can.
Thank you. We'll take it.
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Thank you for reading!
So, in a moment of just, fuck it, I'll give it a try, I am finally doing that thing people keep saying I should do and giving you the chance to support my writing. If you liked what you read today and would like to show that gratitude in cash money, you can help keep this middle-aged single writer turned food equity coordinator/usher/online content creator/social media manager in the black. I accept Zelle (it's my phone number) or CashAp ($Bousel) and I leave it up to you to decide what to give.
Obviously, I'm not gonna put anything behind a paywall and I'm honored you read anything I write at all. I'm gonna try to write something here every Sunday, around this time, and if you have thoughts or feelings you'd like to share with me to write about I'd love that.
Be well. Reach out. You are a light.
LOVE THIS. Share it every year please.