Soup to nuts

For the past weeks, the kids and I (and a bunch of their friends) have been volunteering once a week at a homeless shelter. Our job is to date and sort the cans and dry goods that arrived since the local post office sponsored a food drive. When we began, the back room was full of boxes and you could hardly walk around, but I'm pleased to report that the kids are making a real dent in the work.

I love how they are discussing the issue of homelessness while we work. They ask great questions about whose "fault" homelessness is. We discuss drug addictions and economics and welfare and social/individual responsibility and mental illness and compassion. And we date cans with magic markers. Lots and lots of cans.

One of the more intriguing things the kids discuss is not the folks that are sitting in the shelter (shabbily dressed, drinking coffee and reading Help Wanted ads) but rather the donations themselves. We are not finished the project yet, but the oldest can we have discovered so far is from 1984.

1984!!!

Someone actually donated a can of soup from 1984. Big Brother was apparently not watching.

The kids are keeping a mental tally of all the cans that were dated before the year they were born (the oldest kid is 14, the youngest is 8). We've seen 1990, 1994, 2001 and a box of opened, but unfinished vitamins from 2002. We, to-date, have filled two large boxes with expired food.

Many of the cans are filthy and rusted. It's pretty obvious that they have been sitting in someone's basement pantry for a long time because Johnny just doesn't like Cream of Mushroom. Hey, I have an idea! Let's get rid of some salmonella ridden stuff and give it to homeless people! We can clean out our cabinets and feel good about ourselves at the same time.

My kids and their friends keep asking me why people would give their junk instead of their best. I just shrug and say, "I don't know." What I'm really thinking is.... no, I can't type what I'm really thinking.