UPDATE: I've received $100 in donation receipts. :heart-sickle:
We're a pretty tight-knit online community and I think it'd be fucking sick to do something in the real-world loosely organized in an online space, even if we're doing it separately in our own local communities. It's a holiday season and food insecurity is on the rise, so how about we do a very loosely defined food drive this week (12/17/2020 - 12/24/2020) and make an effort to go donate canned goods to or volunteer with our local food banks/pantries.
No donation is too small, every donation counts and is valid as hell! It doesn't have to be outrageous or even a donation at all if you can't afford to, there is absolutely no pressure. The whole point of a food drive is to get people to donate who wouldn’t otherwise. Maybe we could spam pictures of our donation hauls to help encourage others to do the same! If people actually post pictures it'd be neato to compile them into an album for something we did as a community or something to that effect.
Here is a resource I found of absolute banger non-perishables that can be donated to your local food banks.
This state-by-state resource I compiled months ago should be able to help you find food banks, soup kitchens, food pantries, and homeless shelters in your area. Definitely call ahead to determine what is needed before gathering any supplies. If things like sanitary supplies, clothes, blankets, or whatever are more necessary than canned goods, definitely consider donating those things instead.
And finally here is a WorkingStiffUSA video on organizing food drives in your local communities!
ChapoDotFood has a nice ring to it.
Just a reminder that donating cash and raising cash for food banks and places like that can be really helpful too so that they can purchase things they otherwise might not be able to accept. I know this is case-by-case but they might also get better deals on food as well.
These are incredible resources, thank you.
This, from what I remember reading cash goes a lot further for them anyway, as you said they tend to get much better deals from local wholesalers compared to what you will buying from a supermarket, although obviously whatever you can do is good and if that's giving food from what you have or have brought then that's cool, but don't buy extra to give if you can give the cash instead as you are basically just paying the supermarket a cut of your donation.
I was very tangentially involved in a big stride with housing towards the beginning of the pandemic in my city, and now we have semi-permanent structures built on a lot with 50 people staying there and volunteers making a big dinner every night. One of the key components was a nice dude with an empty industrial lot though, that's not always easy to find.
Getting involved with outreach to the elderly, even for a couple of hours, would be really appreciated, wherever you are.
We have a system locally where isolated elderly folks are assigned a younger volunteer to collect their groceries and maybe a couple of other errands. It's real easy , I just get my assignee's order when I'm doing my own shopping. Delivery only takes about 15 minutes of socially distant shouting about how it's no trouble :) Some interesting conversations about how unions were back in the day too.
even then material impact means more than superstructure just look at coal miner and gay/queer solidarity in UK. who knows if enough out group people violate their heuristic they may have to reshape their heuristic.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesbians_and_Gays_Support_the_Miners
link to wikipedia about the affair.
Yep. Intergenerational contact has been pretty much removed from a lot of peoples lives. It's a big component of the current polarisation. The brainworms wouldn't be so advanced in so many seniors if we made a deliberate effort to mantain a more regular contact tbh.
