Money More Important Than Food at Food Banks
Fact: in all likelihood, a given food bank does not really want your donated food.
Well, it’s the truth all right; food banks don’t really want food so much as they want money. Now it’s not that they are turning away restaurants, supermarkets, farmers, or manufacturers; it’s just that individual members of the public are more appreciated for their dollars (or even their time volunteering) than just about anything else. The last thing they need from you is food, thanks all the same. But why not? Everyone knows that a food bank’s function is to collate and distribute food. What else could a food bank want – and why! And aren’t news reports to be believed, that the Great Recession has occasioned a sharp decline in the amount of food being donated by growers, grocers, and other traditional institutional donors?
Not that surprising, actually, once you find out why (not).
It’s as simple as this: food banks can buy more food with a dollar than any individual person can, given the tremendous discounts they have. Yes, a lot of the food in a food bank is actually bought, not donated! But at a very great discount, one in which little if any profit is made by the sellers, such that a buck can buy six boxes of cereal (while for everyone else six dollars are needed for one single box!)!
Yes, the discounts are that steep, so steep that it makes more sense for you to just give them money instead of food.
Besides, running a food bank costs money. Even though much of the help is comprised of volunteers, some full-time staff is needed. Drivers, administrators, as well as rent and utilities all cost money – especially in a town like New York, for example: City Harvest distributes some fifty-seven thousand pounds of food each day out of the more than three million pounds collected annually. This takes trucks, and truck drivers. That’s why even though you may not be as rich as donors such as real estate developer Isaac Toussie or Al Roker your money is still good – and far better than any food you donate!