Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with foodbank

Broke beyond broke.

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 10:47:27 -0800

We just found out that my husband's not getting his paycheque this week. I'm currently unemployed and have been actively looking for work, to no avail. What to do? His pay has been lovingly garnished by his employer due to overpayment spanning the last year, and we're not even sure he'll be getting a cheque at the end of the month.

He's appealing to his employer this afternoon, and I'm trying to reach the food bank to set up an emergency ration pickup, but their line is busy.

Is there anything else we can do? We don't have any assets, and nothing to pawn. I'm afraid that we won't be able to get continued assistance from the food bank because his salary is decent (when he's receiving it!). All we are promised, if I can get through, is a 3-5 day hamper.

Although we weren't planning on anything big (this is our first christmas together away from family), it would be kind of nice if we could eat/feed our pets.

I have been poor before, but have never felt so destitute. We have 20$ until god-knows-when, with no one to get a loan from.

Get rich quick schemes, anyone? Anything I'm not thinking of?

Help me come up with some games for my family's christmas gathering

If only I had a penguin... — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:34:41 -0800

Help me host an awesome Christmas with games where my family competes to win the right to donate to the food bank. I'm hosting my family's Christmas dinner/party/etc. this year. The person who's hosted it the past few years has run an awesome show and I don't want my Christmas to be a let down. And I want to do some good for the less fortunate. Help me come up with some ideas for achieving both goals. Ideas will generally be in the form of games.

The Players and Setting Me (30s), my mother (50s), my aunt (60s), three cousins and their two spouses (40s), cousins kids (7, 12, 16, 21), my boyfriend (30s), and a friend of the family (60s). We'll be in my one-bedroom apartment. The kitchen is not big enough for guest congregating. The other room is a the living/dining/office room which is medium-sized, and my bedroom which is an ok size.

Our Christmas Tradition/Past Christmases
We celebrate on Christmas eve and open our presents at midnight. So technically it's Christmas day. The dinner is potluck and we use paper plates so no one has to spend their Christmas cooking or fussing.

For the past several years, we've done gifts as follows: We each bring one gift of approximately $50 value. Then we randomly draw numbers. The first person to go picks a gift from the pile and opens it. The next person can take a gift from the pile or steal the first person's gift (first person chooses a new gift from the pile). The third person can take a gift from the pile or steal either of the two previous gifts, etc. It makes it hard to shop, but great fun to open the presents.

My New Spin
I'd like to incorporate some charity into Christmas this year, but I don't want to burden people given the current state of the economy. So I've asked each person to bring 3-5 items for the foodbank and will buy a bunch of food for the foodbank myself. But rather than just give the food to the foodbank, I'd like to organize some games wherein people (divided into two non-random evenly matched teams) compete to be the ones to donate the food. I'll have a box for each team. (Inspriation: baby shower where the goal of the games was to win small gifts purchased by the host to give the new parents). At the end the winning team will draw numbers first for gift opening (confers no actual advantage sine numbers are drawn randomly...it's really competition for the same of competition).

Two ideas I have:
1. Jello-Box Jenga: Your team donates any jello box you successfully extract, if you topple the tower the other team donates what falls
2. Bowling by rolling cans at boxes of X. You donate what you knock over, other team donates the rest.

The Question at Long Last
I'm looking for a couple more game ideas. Some things to consider (in case the post isn't long enough):
1. I can set aside the bedroom for game set up.
2. Teams will have essentially equivalent members so that there wouldn't have to be any head-to-head situations where people were unevenly matched.
3. There will be rampant and shameless -- but good-spirited and friendly -- cheating.
4. I'd like games to incorporate the food, but not on any way that would make it unusable for the food bank.
5. I could buy any specific food required (e.g. jello), but bonus points for games that can use just about whatever food my family happens to bring.

Food Bank Feast

arcticwoman — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 09:57:54 -0800

What interesting and nutritious meals can I make out of items regularly given out from the food bank? It's been a tough year-end for my family and we have found ourselves relying on the food bank more than we would like. We are running out of ideas on what to do with what we get. A couple of notes: I love to cook and am pretty good at it, we have a good collection of spices, and we can occasionally supplement the below items with fresh food (milk, eggs, meat, cheese) although this is limited.

The food bank generally gives me:
Canned vegetables (corn, green beans)
Canned fruit (peaches, pears, mandarins)
Canned soup (all kinds, usually cream of mushroom, tomato)
Tomato products (sauce, paste, diced)
Pasta products (all kinds of noodles, SideKicks)
Canned meat (tuna, ham, salmon)
Canned and dry beans (all kinds)
General (peanut butter, crackers, jam, oatmeal, granola bars)
Fresh (bread, sometimes ground beef, rotten potatoes)

No more soup for you!!!

easternblot — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 09:16:30 -0800

What kind of food items do foodbanks really want or need? It's the time of year where I'm being asked to bring food bank items to gatherings in lieu of gifts. I can find non-perishable things in the store, but I'd like to know if there are certain items that food banks are in need of more than others. Last year I donated some of those "just add boiling water" meals (like Lipton Sidekicks) but maybe everyone does that and they actually need something that nobody donates. I tend to think canned items like soup are very popular, but maybe they are popular because that is exactly what they need. Does anyone have any insider foodbank info, or know where I can find what kind of items people give vs what's wanted?