Each year before Thanksgiving and Christmas, every office I have worked in collects cans for homeless veterans. One year, I was in charge of wrapping the box and making sure everyone was contributing.
Today at lunch, a couple of my co-workers were looking in the box while they were waiting for their turn at the microwave. Out of the box came a can of low sodium collard greens that has been sitting in the break room since I started in June, as well as five cans of expired canned mackerel and an expired can of sardines. First of all, I didn’t even know that one could buy canned mackerel, and thinking about opening an expired can of it almost made me lose my lunch.
I know that a lot of people use canned food drives to clean out their cabinets, or they buy the cheapest possible thing at the store to contribute. Sometimes, I’ve heard people say, “beggars can’t be choosers” or, “I’ll never use this and it’s been sitting in my cabinet forever, so I brought it in for the food drive”.
When I hear people say things like that, I think to myself, “a good can of soup or vegetables, or a box of macaroni costs what, $2.00?”. I just don’t see why there’s any reason to put expired things in the box for the people we are trying to help.
Today at lunch, a couple of my co-workers were looking in the box while they were waiting for their turn at the microwave. Out of the box came a can of low sodium collard greens that has been sitting in the break room since I started in June, as well as five cans of expired canned mackerel and an expired can of sardines. First of all, I didn’t even know that one could buy canned mackerel, and thinking about opening an expired can of it almost made me lose my lunch.
I know that a lot of people use canned food drives to clean out their cabinets, or they buy the cheapest possible thing at the store to contribute. Sometimes, I’ve heard people say, “beggars can’t be choosers” or, “I’ll never use this and it’s been sitting in my cabinet forever, so I brought it in for the food drive”.
When I hear people say things like that, I think to myself, “a good can of soup or vegetables, or a box of macaroni costs what, $2.00?”. I just don’t see why there’s any reason to put expired things in the box for the people we are trying to help.
3 comments:
I really appreciate this post! That really makes me mad - expired canned fish sounds horrendous. Plus a few dollars can make a huge difference.
It's pretty bad in general; but for our veterans? From associates at the VA? I thought the VA is there to assist vets, not poison them. Terrible.
ew, yeah no excuse for that. Bet they wouldnt buy the "chicken of the Sea Mackrel" if they were serving it to their families. I would rather see people not help at all then disrespect the point of charity.
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