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Would you ever use nutritional guidelines as an excuse to take the food from a hungry man/woman/child's mouth who could starve to death without it? This seems to be what New York City's mayor Michael Bloomberg has done.

New York City bans food donations
Inability to control 'nutritional content' cited as reason

What I find ironic (but not funny in the least) is that New York City Department of Homeless Services Commissioner Seth Diamond says that the ban is consistent with Bloomberg's goal to increase, or make better, nutrition for all New York residents. Hmmm...

Doesn't this seem a bit heartless? I mean, it isn't even a money issue.

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Let's see....can use donated food because we can be sure of the nutritional value so we are going to take away ALL the so they receive NO nutrition whatsoever .... wow, just wow!

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Jennifer Dent
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You may find yourself thinking, "Gee, I wonder if Dan's spidey senses are tingling about this article, and if so, why."

To which I would reply, "Well, since you mention it, they are..."

This entire column is someone's opinion about another op-ed piece: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/no_kugel_for_you_N4VuTrqavfOiApSHngxuMJ

The NY Post is a borderline-tabloid to begin with, and WND is... well, it's Alex Jones and Art Bell for the political set. Anything that has a whiff of left-ward slant is grounds for outrage. Reading a piece in either is enough to make one doubt the facts. Filtering one through the other is like insanity squared.

WND asked both the NYPost author and the City about the issue; the author rehashed his recollections about a single conversation he claims to have had with the city's Homeless Services Director, while the city says that this policy has been in effect for a long time (which I'd believe). WND just chose to believe the NYP author, who conveniently dismissed food safety concerns with a handwave.

There are a lot of reasons to not allow donations of goods to these places. The biggest is logistics: there's a lot of overhead required in organizing stuff, verifying that it's usable, and storing it. Look at what happens after natural disasters: people try to help by donating clothes and such, but they wind up causing problems by donating things that are either unneeded (how many blankets do you need after a summer hurricane?), in poor/unusable condition, or in such volume that they can't be stored properly. Food has the added complication of being perishable and potentially sickening or killing people if it's handled improperly.

OTOH, banning these donations and allowing professionals to handle the procurement of goods allows them to look at what they need, submit a PO, and answer the door when the truck arrives. That's MUCH MUCH easier.

-Dan.

First off - no food bank that I am aware of accepts donations of perishable items so that argument is moot...

Second - food banks and "soup kitchens" at least here in Texas are 99.9% fully staff by VOLUNTEERS, adding so much "red tape" is not only ill advised it is costly. I volunteer at both types of places - food banks and soup kitchens - it gives the community a chance to give back and help out. We volunteers check the expiration date on all donated food, we go through clothes to look for stains, holes, etc we repair and clean what we can, what we can't is re-purposed and made into blankets and other items that are needed.

"professionals" are not needed...I wonder who you think it's easier on? You perhaps? After all if all of this is handled by "professionals" then you will not be needed to donate your time to help sort or clean. If you don't mean it would be easier on you personally perhaps you can share who exactly would it be easier on?

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Jennifer Dent
Site Administrator

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please let me assure the thought never entered my mind

Jenn, our local food bank does accept donations of perishable items ... but only from certain sources. That way they're able to certify the freshness of those foods.

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Good to know - ours does not - however some of the donations ($$) that is received by the food bank is used by us volunteers around holidays to purchase perishable items for families in need - and to buy the perishables when we work in the soup kitchens

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Jennifer Dent
Site Administrator

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Even those run by the city? (because those are the only ones affected by this policy)

This, from the site admin? Really?

No, my concern is for the staff at these facilities and the amount of work they have to do. You said:

All of that takes time, and sometimes time is more valuable than the money it costs to buy supplies. I don't know how big the facilities you work at are and how many people they intend to serve, but the organization in question here is tasked with serving all of NYC, which has over 8 million people. In any kind of endeavor, when your output volume is very high, small improvements to efficiency and productivity can pay large dividends. You can't deny that ordering food from a commercial food vendor is more efficient than processing donations and affords the server less liability in terms of contamination risk.

If you're working for a small organization, perhaps time is less valuable than money.

As an aside, according to this site, it looks like Dallas (I assume that's what the D/FW means in your location) sources all of their homeless services to non-profits. According to the article, NYC does not do that; some facilities are operated by the city.

-Dan.