If you are in the USA have you or anyone you know well (people you see every week or enough that they a part of your life) using SNAP benefits?
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Totally. Don't try to shop for other people. They might have allergies. They might have 20 pounds of potatoes at home but nothing to put on them so they need some freeze dried parsley. You don't know.
I do think that now is a nice time to clean out the pantry and see what you can give away that you won't use. But this is more about morale.
The $20 donation will do more. But how would it feel to throw out food at a time like this.
It would feel very bad.
Give it all away.
I went off on a tangent so I want to say the important part again:
Don't try to shop for people you don't know. Don't try to buy food for people. It's not helpful. You probably aren't even good at making good purchase decisions for yourself are you*?
Donate the money or give it to particular people who can use it directly.
*speaking from experience
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Get you on the weird canned food, maybe you could leave a few gift cards for a grocery store (not sure if you have grocery stores in the Bronx like we do in the Midwest where you can get a gift card that is only good at the grocery store).
Alternatively period products or diapers, if people don't have to spend money on those they can spend more on food.
@MCDuncanLab @futurebird Grocery store gift cards is an interesting idea, giving the flexibility to choose what they need most, without most of the risk that cash would have of someone stealing it to buy something frivolous.
My wife grew up with some food insecurity, so she picked out some items to donate that she knew her family would have preferred when she was younger, then we supplemented with a monetary donation to a local food pantry, considering that the pantry employees probably have a better idea of what's in high demand than we do. -
Get you on the weird canned food, maybe you could leave a few gift cards for a grocery store (not sure if you have grocery stores in the Bronx like we do in the Midwest where you can get a gift card that is only good at the grocery store).
Alternatively period products or diapers, if people don't have to spend money on those they can spend more on food.
Diapers are always needed and also cat food. Cat food isn't covered by snap but it always went FAST when we had it. People want to take better care of their pets.
Anyone who says poor people can't feed their cats can jump in the east river and I'd be happy to help them.
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@MCDuncanLab @futurebird Grocery store gift cards is an interesting idea, giving the flexibility to choose what they need most, without most of the risk that cash would have of someone stealing it to buy something frivolous.
My wife grew up with some food insecurity, so she picked out some items to donate that she knew her family would have preferred when she was younger, then we supplemented with a monetary donation to a local food pantry, considering that the pantry employees probably have a better idea of what's in high demand than we do.Gift cards are better than trying to buy food. But, they are also limiting. I might force someone to make an extra trip to an inconvenient location. And then there is the problem of there being like $2.42 cents on a card and nothing to buy that fits.
I promise you the worry that people are using money in a frivolous way is not worth worrying about. Free yourself from such thoughts.
Frivolous spending is its own punishment.
Money is freedom in this world.
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@futurebird
Thanks for bringing up money donations.Our local food pantry sent out very good messaging in early October about: It's better to give money because the recipient knows better what they need.
I had to talk myself out of an "ingrained from a young age" mentality of:
But they might spend it on "bad" things!
(Heard lots of sermons about helping the less fortunate but usually only in a VERY controlled way.)When I catch myself thinking in that crappy way I shake it off and do better
Giving money rather than food to food banks also lets them do bulk purchases at much lower cost than individuals paying retail, greatly increasing the amount of food they can get.
In terms of helping individual people on SNAP:
There are some legal restrictions on giving cash or gift cards rather than buying food for them.
On this I have learned from @mattbc , who has relied on SNAP themself as well as knowing the relevant law:
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Diapers are always needed and also cat food. Cat food isn't covered by snap but it always went FAST when we had it. People want to take better care of their pets.
Anyone who says poor people can't feed their cats can jump in the east river and I'd be happy to help them.
This kind of thing pisses me off so much.
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Giving money rather than food to food banks also lets them do bulk purchases at much lower cost than individuals paying retail, greatly increasing the amount of food they can get.
In terms of helping individual people on SNAP:
There are some legal restrictions on giving cash or gift cards rather than buying food for them.
On this I have learned from @mattbc , who has relied on SNAP themself as well as knowing the relevant law:
@michael_w_busch @roytoo @mattbc
Worth thinking about for regular donations.
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Diapers are always needed and also cat food. Cat food isn't covered by snap but it always went FAST when we had it. People want to take better care of their pets.
Anyone who says poor people can't feed their cats can jump in the east river and I'd be happy to help them.
@futurebird Your cat can be what's keeping you sane, able to dig yourself out of whatever hole you're in. Speaking from experience. @MCDuncanLab
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@futurebird Your cat can be what's keeping you sane, able to dig yourself out of whatever hole you're in. Speaking from experience. @MCDuncanLab
It's easy to imagine other people, especially people that are often not talked about with much respect as if they are just frozen in amber. As if they aren't trying to do anything with their lives, build anything, make a better future.
It's a kind of mental trap.
And with the way the US does so little about poverty it would be much less upsetting if one could imagine most poor people as foolish and nothing like ourselves.
That couldn't ever be you, right?
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It's easy to imagine other people, especially people that are often not talked about with much respect as if they are just frozen in amber. As if they aren't trying to do anything with their lives, build anything, make a better future.
It's a kind of mental trap.
And with the way the US does so little about poverty it would be much less upsetting if one could imagine most poor people as foolish and nothing like ourselves.
That couldn't ever be you, right?
I have an uncle who tells the same story from the 80s where he saw a woman from a family who he "knew" was on food stamps buying a bunch of steaks and ribs at the butcher. This story is so old that there still was a butcher in the little Pennsylvania small town.
"And I was standing there with my chicken." he'd go on all indignant.
Dude is on social security and a US steel pension and owns his house. A few years back I got sick of that story and said something.
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I have an uncle who tells the same story from the 80s where he saw a woman from a family who he "knew" was on food stamps buying a bunch of steaks and ribs at the butcher. This story is so old that there still was a butcher in the little Pennsylvania small town.
"And I was standing there with my chicken." he'd go on all indignant.
Dude is on social security and a US steel pension and owns his house. A few years back I got sick of that story and said something.
So he hasn't told it around me anymore, but I think what can really bother people is there isn't much separating them at all from being in the same boat.
So you make up a story about how you are making good sensible choices and THAT's why you don't need to worry about SNAP, or the hours of the food pantry.
It's not just a mix of luck and circumstances. That would be terrifying wouldn't it?
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So he hasn't told it around me anymore, but I think what can really bother people is there isn't much separating them at all from being in the same boat.
So you make up a story about how you are making good sensible choices and THAT's why you don't need to worry about SNAP, or the hours of the food pantry.
It's not just a mix of luck and circumstances. That would be terrifying wouldn't it?
Sometimes I think "that could never be me. My family could help me" but with the way things are going?
Imagine your whole support network is tapped out. You know you can't ask for help because they are dealing with similar problems to your own. Or you are the one who needs to help them. The strain spreads like hairline cracks until the whole foundation falls out.
Then someone looks at you sideways for having a coffee. "That's your problem, that fancy coffee."
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I have an uncle who tells the same story from the 80s where he saw a woman from a family who he "knew" was on food stamps buying a bunch of steaks and ribs at the butcher. This story is so old that there still was a butcher in the little Pennsylvania small town.
"And I was standing there with my chicken." he'd go on all indignant.
Dude is on social security and a US steel pension and owns his house. A few years back I got sick of that story and said something.
Yeah so like this one time, he saw someone who was buying something he thought they didn't deserve.
I bet that one event is his entire moral justification for why the poor deserve to be poor. And he could have been wrong.
She might not have been on food stamps, someone might have given her some money and told her to treat her family to the steaks and ribs, she might have a stew recipe that stretches those steaks and ribs for a month.
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If you are in the USA have you or anyone you know well (people you see every week or enough that they a part of your life) using SNAP benefits?
@futurebird I checked in with my friends and discovered that most only receive like $10 or $24 in SNAP benefits per month. As a result, they rely heavily on the bigger food pantries that you drive through and they load up your car. They get weird stuff sometimes (like a huge bag of onions), though they'll take whatever is given.
Food banks and food pantries are going to be under tremendous stress. I hope that most states have discounted or free lunches for kids in schools, though I know many of those programs have been scaled back, especially breakfasts for school kids. Teachers don't get paid enough, but many are stocking snacks just so their hungry students can pay attention.
Some reluctant churches need to step up and live out their faith in action as well. The other faiths are pretty consistently doing this.
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Yeah so like this one time, he saw someone who was buying something he thought they didn't deserve.
I bet that one event is his entire moral justification for why the poor deserve to be poor. And he could have been wrong.
She might not have been on food stamps, someone might have given her some money and told her to treat her family to the steaks and ribs, she might have a stew recipe that stretches those steaks and ribs for a month.
And even if he wasn't wrong, she's not on Food stamps because she eats steak. She's on Food stamps because she for whatever reason can't earn a living wage. And it's can't not wont. You don't get on Food stamps by sitting at home and not working, there are all these rules.
If she can make steaks and ribs work on a poverty budget, yay for her, she should give lessons.
If she's cheating, boo, but that's no argument that the poor deserve to be poor.
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Totally. Don't try to shop for other people. They might have allergies. They might have 20 pounds of potatoes at home but nothing to put on them so they need some freeze dried parsley. You don't know.
I do think that now is a nice time to clean out the pantry and see what you can give away that you won't use. But this is more about morale.
The $20 donation will do more. But how would it feel to throw out food at a time like this.
It would feel very bad.
Give it all away.
@futurebird @roytoo The annual Scouting for Food stickers are appearing on doors this weekend. I wish they provided a donation website. Some years I had suitable food in the pantry to give. Other years I buy food knowing that giving money is better. This year I’ll give food and money. I will look up recommendations from the local orgs.
In my first good job the org was involved in respects to international disasters. Learned that money was king and that some donations did more harm than good.
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@futurebird @roytoo The annual Scouting for Food stickers are appearing on doors this weekend. I wish they provided a donation website. Some years I had suitable food in the pantry to give. Other years I buy food knowing that giving money is better. This year I’ll give food and money. I will look up recommendations from the local orgs.
In my first good job the org was involved in respects to international disasters. Learned that money was king and that some donations did more harm than good.
@futurebird @roytoo A benefit of the food drives is that it gets people to donate, even in not the most efficient way, who might otherwise not donate and exposes youth to doing good, though hopefully not in a superficial way.
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@futurebird @roytoo A benefit of the food drives is that it gets people to donate, even in not the most efficient way, who might otherwise not donate and exposes youth to doing good, though hopefully not in a superficial way.
This is why I think it's important to try to accept donations of physical items even though it's not as efficient. It's an important experience for the *donors*
But when being a donor one can be aware of that, and grow.
But it's like when you cook something and bring it to a person who lost a loved one. That's not really for them. It might be for you.
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And even if he wasn't wrong, she's not on Food stamps because she eats steak. She's on Food stamps because she for whatever reason can't earn a living wage. And it's can't not wont. You don't get on Food stamps by sitting at home and not working, there are all these rules.
If she can make steaks and ribs work on a poverty budget, yay for her, she should give lessons.
If she's cheating, boo, but that's no argument that the poor deserve to be poor.
I mean, if it's such a good gig being on SNAP... then go get on it. Quit your job and go live the good life. What is stopping you exactly?
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Diapers are always needed and also cat food. Cat food isn't covered by snap but it always went FAST when we had it. People want to take better care of their pets.
Anyone who says poor people can't feed their cats can jump in the east river and I'd be happy to help them.
@futurebird @MCDuncanLab I remember when I was actually #homeless and very badly #insane, I went to my local Citizens Advice Centre for help to fill out a form, and when they discovered I hadn't eaten for several days, they gave me a food parcel.
But what broke me is that they asked if I had and pets, and when I said I had cats, they added cat food. That felt SO HUGE.
On living rough with cats
We're all familiar with the image of an urban rough sleeper with his mongrel on a string. Rough sleepers commonly have dogs, and it's easy to understand why. A familiar animal — an animal which offers some affection, some uncritical regard, and, at night, some warmth — has to help a person cope with the extremely tough life a rough sleeper has to cope with.But you don't typically see rough sleepers with cats. Cats are different from dogs; they are much more self sufficient: specialist individual predators, able to feed themselves adequately in most British landscapes. A closely related species is even native. Cats don't, in fact, need us. When they choose to live with us it's from choice. That choice is certainly based on some simple pragmatic considerations. If we have the resources we can provide regular palatable food. If we have homes, we can provide comfort and warmth — which cats love — and a degree of security. We also, if we have homes, provide stability of place — a fixed base, a hub for a hunting ground. Cats do like a familiar hunting ground.
The Fool on the Hill (www.journeyman.cc)
