Photo Credit: Manchester Library
The unfortunate reality is people go hungry all year round, and we should all be doing more to help those less fortunate than ourselves. But, this time of year we simply have no excuse, as it’s especially easy to give food to local food banks and shelters.
During the holidays most major grocery stores usually have food drive barrels located near the checkout lines. I urge everyone to pick up some extra items while you shop to drop in the barrel. If you can only afford a few cans of soup, that’s OK. If you can afford more, set yourself a budget and keep dropping stuff in your cart until you reach that budget.
Not sure what to get? I’ll list a few items from my list below, but generally you want to make sure to get food that is non-parishable (no fresh fruit, meat, or anything that needs refrigeration, etc…) and is not in a glass container. It’s also a good idea to continually ask yourself, would I want to eat this?
Items from my list:
- Canned Fruit
- Canned Vegetables
- Soup
- Tuna (in water – NOT that crappy oily stuff)
- Peanut Butter (plastic jar)
- Rice
- Stuffing
- Gravy (can or powder mix)
- Biscuit / muffin mix
- Cooking Oil
- Spaghetti / Sauce (plastic jar)
- Pancake Mix
- Cereal / Oatmeal
- Granola Bars
- Cookies / Crackers
- Brownies / Cookie mix
- Coffee
- Juice (plastic bottles or those little juice boxes)
I agree. I try to sponsor a person at the local homeless shelter every year, I drop my coins in the Salvation Army buckets and I try to give a little bit of food. I think of how lucky we really are. Ten dollars of food to us is like lunch for some people.