Food banks and how you can help EVEN MORE

Tis the season for people to start donating food to food banks.

As a Board Member of a one food bank and a contributor to several others, Thank you. Thank you. Thank. You.

You are awesome.

Wanna do more to help? Want to help people even MORE than you already do with less effort on your part? (Or, more effort in a few instances as I shall explain.) Here's how.

MEAT

If you hunt, donate the meat. In my community, I accept deer and hogs and I do the processing. If you can't get ahold of me and still want to donate, take the critter over to any deer processor here and tell 'em it is for me for the food bank. They'll call me and I'll come get the meat. Stacey Keen's place, off Highway 32, and I have an arrangement for food bank meat, but I will work with all the processors.

If you can pay for the processing, I can get you a receipt for taxes. If you can't pay for the processing, that's OK too.

Don't live near me? No problem. Hunters for the Hungry is where you are. https://www.h4hungry.org/

MONEY

When you donate money to the food bank it goes MUCH farther than the cans of food you buy at the store.

Here's how.

Food banks buy food from regional distribution centers.

In SOWEGA, it is Second Harvest of SOWEGA. We buy food for 19¢ a pound. All kinds of food.

We can buy steak, ground meat, bread, canned food, fresh produce, frozen food, snacks and more for 19¢ a pound.

Your $1 contribution buys 5 pounds of food.

When you spend $1 at the grocery store for the food bank - and we love you for it - you get a lot less than we can at the distribution center.

TIME

Food banks can use your time too. Can you make deliveries? Sometimes the people we help do not have transportation. Can you take food to them? You might have to do this once a month or less. Unfortunately, we cannot tell you exactly when you will be needed for transportation. Can you help?

HUNGER NEVER ENDS

This is sad. Hunger never ends. The people who you are so awesomely helping during the holidays need food during the rest of the year too. Your contributions are needed all year long.

If you can contribute during the year - food or money - it is appreciated.

OTHER HELP

In my community, we have BackPack Buddies. http://www.backpackbuddiesga.org/ Your community has one too. Just google BackPack Buddies and your community.

BackPack Buddies can use you. Someone needs to pick up the food from the distribution center and get it to the assembly area. Someone needs to help pack the food into the backpacks.

BackPack Buddies sends food home with elementary school children, enough for the weekend. The children are told to hide the food. Believe it or not, some parents will steal food from their children. The kids bring the backpack to school on Monday. It's refilled and sent home again Friday.

If a smaller child is also in the home, the backpack can hold enough food for the other child as well.