December 4 ~ helping others in this season of giving

This sweet graphic is from Little Birdie Blessings.

For the past few winters, our church has had a small part in helping neighbors in our community who may not have enough to eat.  Starting in early November or so, a large plastic tub is placed in the foyer.  Our church folks bring in items for our local food pantry.  When the tub fills up, our pastor delivers it to the food pantry.  Then he brings the empty tub back to the church and the cycle begins again. 

One thing I have been doing is buying a few items for the food pantry every time I grocery shop.  Canned corn, green beans, and so on are 50¢ a can at our local supermarket.  Recently Wal*Mart has had 4-packs of canned vegetables for $2.  I buy things like this, or instant mashed potatoes, or boxed macaroni and cheese or just boxes of plain or whole wheat pasta, and so on.  In November I put in some cans of cranberry sauce and some of pumpkin.

Recently, Mr. T and I found a way to help out the food pantry for free.  Our local Rite Aid and CVS stores were both offering rewards in the same value as certain items -- so the items were free.  Mr. T always shops these two stores for the deals, so it was a simple matter for him to pick up these free items.  Some of the things we got were 4-packs of snack size pudding cups, and Kraft boxed macaroni and cheese.  If these types of deals continue, we will continue to put the free items in the food pantry tub.  This is a way that people with little grocery money to spare can give to those who may be even less fortunate.