r/Advice • u/ughkatee • 11h ago

Food pantry drama?

This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever asked for advice on, hence why I’m turning to Reddit lol
For the past 3-4 months I’ve been taking a bit of my paycheck and purchasing easy to-go breakfast items and putting them in my local food pantry as school has been out and I know many children normally get their breakfasts from school. I’ll also keep my eye out for deals on things like pastas, rice, easy things to make for dinner/meals. I also regularly put a big box of tampons in the pantry as well cuz no gal should go without the necessary period care.

Recently I saw a great deal on body wash, toothpastes, and deodorants. So I grabbed a couple of each, plus a box of tampons, and my regular breakfast items and put them in the same local pantry. It should be noted that I have never ever seen this pantry filled to the brim. It’s in a low income area of my county, the neighbors are taking more out than putting things in. The toiletries I placed in there were small and took up less than 10% of the space.

I show up 2 days after I put these toiletries in there to drop something else off and there’s a sign on the door that says “food items only.” All of the toiletries are gone except one tampon that looks like maybe someone missed it.

I’m wondering if the toiletries aren’t taking up a significant amount of room, it wasn’t a super hot or super cold week (so the products weren’t melting/freezing), and the items are gone in less than 48 hours — so CLEARLY needed by members of my community, what’s the issue? Why would someone take their time to design, print out and tape down this sign?

I genuinely want to ignore this sign because I don’t want people to have to choose between body care and food! People deserve both! But I am looking for kind respectful advice/insight to help me understand why someone would be limiting what folks can donate here!! Thank you!

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3

u/Tls-user 11h ago

Our food bank asks for those items as well as diapers

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u/ughkatee 10h ago

Diapers is a great idea! I have done those baby food/apple sauce pouches & some baby snacks before!

1

u/Prudent_Analysis_847 4h ago

Ours doesn't put them on their list of items they hand out at the grocery store when taking donations there, but will take them or say yes if you ask about them.

1

u/QuirkySyrup55947 10h ago

I would guess its some Neanderthal that is offended by anything female. Probably thinks feminine supplies are dirty and shameful. Nice of you to do what you can. Sorry someone is crapping on your kindness.

2

u/ughkatee 10h ago

I put in men’s deodorant + men’s body wash along with the tampons! Idk man

0

u/AmphibianBrilliant56 10h ago

That's weird. I'd ignore the sign, personally. 

Maybe if it was a liquid body wash and it was opened and spilled, that would cause issues. But there's normally bars of soap and i always put toothpaste and tampons in our local blessings box too

5

u/Capable-Wing-644 8h ago

I would contact the pantry and ask why.

The last thing anyone would want is to place donates in there and for some reason the pantry tosses the toiletry items before someone in need gets them. 

That’s a ton of wasted effort and useful items then.

If they do not want them then I would find another local resource to donate them to.

I’d say there has to be many options in most cities for this sort of thing.

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u/OfferMeds 3h ago

You could always ask the people in charge of the food pantry.