Heidi Bruder

This is a repost from my dear friend Carolyn’s blog. It really made me stop and think. Thanks for challenging me, Caro!  This is well worth the read.

We need to talk about the food shelf.
We need to talk.

There seems to be a misunderstanding about the food shelf. And I’d like to take a moment to help you understand the purpose of it and to give you a better picture of the kind of people it serves. You can’t turn on the radio or walk into a local business this time of year without seeing some kind of food drive or request for canned goods. My grocery stores offer grocery bags already filled with food shelf items that you can buy for $5 or $10. You bring a canned item to the local tanning booth and you get a free tan. (Not a joke).

What catalyzed this conversation (and I really hope that it is) is an e-mail I got from Caribou Coffee, one of the largest coffee chains here in MN. Their latest promotion is to get you, the kind-hearted consumer, to purchase a pound of coffee beans to donate to the local food shelf. And you get a free drink for doing so. Woohoo. Caribou says that one of the most requested food items is coffee. So let’s all fight hunger in the US by donating at $12/lb bag of coffee, right? As you can already tell, I’m dripping with sarcasm.

So let’s talk about the purpose of the food shelf. Pretty simple, right? People don’t have enough money for food. Some people spend their money on lottery tickets. Some people don’t make more than minimum wage. Some are bums. Some are hard-working families who just don’t make enough to cover the rent and food. Some have too much credit card debt and can’t afford food. Some just got laid off from their high-paying jobs and didn’t have any savings. The kinds of people that visit the food shelf are as varied as the fish in the sea. The point is, you have to get the stereotype out of your head. They are people. Families. Those with needs…so pretty much people like me and you.

Although the food shelf (especially those supported by the government) does get money to purchase food, they are greatly dependent on the generosity of people. People like me and you.

So here’s my beef. What would happen if instead of donating a basket of nonperishables that can actually fill a belly and are healthy, everyone decided to donate a pound of bitter coffee? Or what if we continued to empty out our cupboards of ONLY the extra cans of jellied cranberries, lime Jell-O, generic tuna casserolle (but not the $4 jar of alfredo sauce–that’s too yummy) for the food drive? Here’s what would happen…a family in need would go to the food shelf and walk away with a box containing things like this: a bag of stale donuts, a container of caramel corn, a box of candy canes, a really old box of hamburger helper, etc. You think that doesn’t happen. It did. To me.

Not more than 4 years ago Skip and I moved our family back to Minnesota from California. We were financially destitute. Poor choices, high cost of living and a job that paid next to nothing put us in a very bad financial position. I had to swallow my pride and sign our family up at the local food shelf. In my mind, the food shelf was only reserved for those on welfare. Not so. While most of my experience with the food shelf was wonderful, when we moved to another county, I was horrified at what they had to offer. A grocery bag of stale donuts. A container of caramel corn. A box of candy canes. Seriously. How was I supposed to feed my family with crap like that? Although many Americans would be excited about a package of danishes, I was not. I wanted something that would nourish us, not make us fat. That was my last trip to the food shelf.

So we are at a crossroads now. My kids have had food drives at school this month. There will undoubtedly be a group going door-to-door collecting food for the food shelf. What are you going to give? Are you going to weed out the cans that have been sitting there for over a year because you won’t eat them, thinking, “Hey, if someone is really hungry enough, they’ll eat anything!” Or will you fill that bag with the kind of food you feed yourself or your own children? Essentially you are feeding someone else’s kids. Would you have someone over and feed them crappy food? You know you wouldn’t. You would probably spend more on company than you normally would on your own family. Why not hold off on that $12 bag of coffee and go fill your cart with quality food for another family. Then drive it over to the food shelf yourself and volunteer to hand it out. I guarantee your perspective will change. Or think of us. Would you have my family over to dinner and feed it to us? Make your donations really count. Make it a sacrifice because then it will really mean something to you instead of being a relief that you can finally get your cupboard space back.

And if donating your lime Jell-O is a sacrifice, then do it. Just make sure you donate that can of pears too. Because Minnesotans can’t eat lime Jell-O without pears.