Day Twenty-One: Food Drive

My ambitious plan for November was to get my condo association involved in a door-to-door food drive. I had it all mapped out, how I'd collect pantry items weekly from outside the eighteen front doors of the residents of our building, how I could post a little success chart (pounds of food collected, perhaps) by the back door where everyone could see it. I was so excited! I sent out an email to our association's board to make sure I was allowed to solicit for donations via an email on our mailing list and maybe flyers and empty grocery bags on everyone's welcome mats.

I never imagined I'd be turned down.

It has hurt my feelings and made me feel ineffectual. I can share what I already have stocked in my pantry, yes, and I can buy a few bags of canned foods and pasta next time I'm grocery shopping, but that seems to help so little and I wanted to help, with my neighbors, a whole lot.

Last night, while my husband and son played in the adjacent park, I visited our grocery store and discovered they were hosting their own food drive. Shopping bags of non-perishables were already started to pile up in the boxes by the cash registers and posters festively decorated the store. As I went to check out, I noticed little paper coupons that cashiers could scan to add donations of $1, $3, and $5 to my order. It was easy as pie to hand over $20 in donation barcodes. The best feeling came from knowing something concrete about the Chicago Food Depository's program and amazing purchasing power from all my food drive research.

For me, it was $20 extra on my credit card bill, easy enough to pay off by the end of the month. The Food Depository, on the other hand, estimates that every dollar they receive in donations feeds a meal to a family of four. (That's astounding! I couldn't buy more than a Coke or a can of stewed tomatoes for a dollar.) So, as I bought groceries last night, I was sort of inviting eighty of the hungry and impoverished citizens of Chicago to share our family's meal. Eighty people. Twenty families of four. $20.

I felt alone, not having the support of my neighbors this month. I'd wondered what possible impact I could have, by myself, on the great gaping need for food in our community. I mean, really, how far can a bag of canned corn and kidney beans go? I hadn't thought about donating money, really, and I hadn't realized how that money, combined with food manufacturers willing to sell their extra food so cheaply, could stretch. It is like magic!

I am not ineffectual. I know, being in this community of givers, that I'm not alone in my desire to do good things. This month, my attempt to start a food drive was, yes, a failure, but even alone I am able to do tremendous good. It has me feeling inspired, wondering at all the times when a small gesture on my part could yield so much, when one person can help eighty without even feeling the strain of it. Awesome super-power, huh? :) It seems like that is what this 29Gifts experience, this community is giving me--a sense of my own powers and untapped abilities to make the world a better place. It doesn't have to be flashy! My actions ripple outwards into the world, influence and help others, and help make generosity and love contagious. We are all of us super-heroes.

If you live in the United States and want to find and support a food bank in your area, visit Feeding America.org.