hoops902
Senior Associate
Joined: Dec 22, 2010 13:21:29 GMT -5
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Post by hoops902 on Nov 16, 2017 9:13:21 GMT -5
Here's the reason schools (and others) do food drives rather than money...and to speak to the efficiency standpoint, it's actually FAR more efficient this way.
1. Asking for money turns it into just another school money-grab. If you want to donate money to an organization, it's super simple to do, no reason to go through a school to do it. 2. Donating actual food is FAR easier to do at school than on your own, because it's somewhere you'll already be going as opposed to having to take the food to the food bank. 3. Efficiency. The idea of these food drives is that you'll go through your pantry at home and pull out stuff you're not going to eat or can easily spare. This means that people who would donate $0 may give some cans of food instead...you can't beat $0 for the cost. As an example, my wife's work is having a food drive right now. We wouldn't give them money. They're going to get multiple grocery bags full of some random canned goods and a metric ton of old baby food that's still good but which our kid doesn't eat anymore.
To your point about having it more impactful if they volunteered...yes, it would be...but again you don't need a school to make that happen. Collecting money or volunteering time isn't any simpler by adding an intermediary...having a simple collection point for items a group needs that people are already going to makes it much simpler. I would bet that the food bank ends up overall with a LOT more food from food drives than they would if the organizations simply said "give us money that we'll give to the food bank so they can go buy food". For most people, the money it is costing them to donate actual food items is a sunk cost they won't recover anyways (not to mention all the people who may give 1 can of food, but wouldn't bother handing over the 68 cents it cost to buy, plus the trouble of going out and buying it just for this).
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Mrs. Dinero
Well-Known Member
100% about truth & justice. Always trying to give mercy a chance.
Joined: Dec 28, 2010 17:09:17 GMT -5
Posts: 1,508
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Post by Mrs. Dinero on Nov 16, 2017 10:07:35 GMT -5
Thanks all! All very valid points.
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Tennesseer
Member Emeritus
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Post by Tennesseer on Nov 16, 2017 10:18:13 GMT -5
Food drives are fine if the recipient is local. How else am I to get rid of pantry goods about to expire..
Food drives are not a good idea if the recipient(s) are distant, especially if not on mainland USA. Money donations are better.
ETA:this goes for donating clothing and non-food household goods too.
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suesinfl
Senior Member
Joined: Jun 9, 2011 18:02:27 GMT -5
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Post by suesinfl on Nov 16, 2017 10:39:36 GMT -5
Well, hoops902 said it better than I was going to. I make my kids go with me to the store, pick out what perishables they want to donate and take the items to school. The school also has the kids help load the donated items into the volunteers' vehicles, take inventory, etc. At the end, the class with the most participation earns something like ice cream and then at the end of the year there is a small celebration for all the volunteer work that was done through various projects. This was done in the younger grades, but HS clubs are required to log in a certain number of volunteer hours for community projects. I figure a few minutes of my time, gas, etc. is well worth the lessons learned. Plus at the end of life am I going to wish I had those few minutes/money back? No. We are a community and we help each other through the hard times.
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NancysSummerSip
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Post by NancysSummerSip on Nov 16, 2017 15:31:45 GMT -5
Well, hoops902 said it better than I was going to. I make my kids go with me to the store, pick out what perishables they want to donate and take the items to school. The school also has the kids help load the donated items into the volunteers' vehicles, take inventory, etc. At the end, the class with the most participation earns something like ice cream and then at the end of the year there is a small celebration for all the volunteer work that was done through various projects. This was done in the younger grades, but HS clubs are required to log in a certain number of volunteer hours for community projects. I figure a few minutes of my time, gas, etc. is well worth the lessons learned. Plus at the end of life am I going to wish I had those few minutes/money back? No. We are a community and we help each other through the hard times. You and I both live in a hurricane zone. We have an additional incentive to donate. We stock our shelves for hurricane season, but not everything we buy gets used. You can keep nonperishable items for a time, but not forever. So clearing our shelves and donating items means they won't go bad waiting for use. And we know too well that while we got relatively lucky with this year's storms, many around us in Texas, Puerto Rico and Florida did not. Giving back, whether food or cash, means someone else gets food on the table that's otherwise missing. One out of every 10 kids in my county goes to bed hungry every day, and I live in the most prosperous county in the state. A million people in the tri-county area have no clue where their next meal is coming from, and that statistic dates from before Irma wiped out a lot of winter agricultural and tourism jobs.
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