My son goes to preschool in a church building. The preschool isn’t run by the church, we jut rent space from them but we coexist with the congregation and their programs cordially. It’s a Methodist church, so a congregation that’s active on social justice and helping in the community.
On the second Tuesday of each month, the church is a pick up location for a local food bank. I don’t know what time the food pantry opens. 9:30? 10? I don’t know because I have a kitchen full of food at home and a steady income with which to buy more. But every second Tuesday, by 9 am there is a line of people at the front doors of the church, waiting for a bag of groceries to take home.
The people there are all kinds. Many appear elderly. A few with obvious trappings of disabilities like wheelchairs. So many minorities. I don’t know what brings them to the food pantry. Job loss, maybe. Inadequate wages. Holes in the social safety new. I don’t know why they need food.
Most of all I don’t know where they go all the other Tuesdays of the month to get a bag of groceries.
Whenever I see that line of people, I feel a knot inside me. It reminds me to give to the food bank that organizes that food pantry and dozens like it in my county. Usually, I just give money but I’ll also contribute food when a drive or pick-up is nearby. I always give baby food and formula. Some mother needs it.
If you’re thinking about your charitable giving, consider a food bank. Somewhere in your community there is a line of people like the one at my son’s school every second Tuesday.

I briefly dated a guy that would go to a foodbank (I would like to disclose it had nothing to do with his income, or lack thereof, but he ended up being bipolar. crrraaaazzzzzy.)
It was insane, as he would tell it. You would have to get there early and line up or you wouldn’t get anything at all. Saddening, it is 🙁