In the little kitchen area of my office is a cardboard box for donations to the Food Bank Farm pantry (which provides free food to families who need it). The box has been there for a few months, and has gotten filled with enough good stuff that it was brought over to the pantry a few times. Occasionally I will put something in from the list of suggested items to donate (whole-grain cereal, pasta, canned vegetables, tuna fish, etc.). But for the past several weeks, some of the intelligent, creative, and sensitive people I work with have been abusing the purpose of the box. I might have to post a sign saying, This is not a depository for food you would just as soon be throwing away.

Recently these items were found in the box:

five plastic bottles of what appeared to be cola, marked only by dot-matrixed computer-print-out labels that said something like "internet testing corp" with a url and a long coded number.

Two "Milky" white chocolate candy bars from Great Britain with an expiration date six months past

A dented can of sliced pears in light syrup, clearly marked as being for distribution as US food aid (think: government cheese)

A small jar of fancy chocolate-brandy "hard sauce" (an unwanted Christmas gift)

What's really messed up about these "donations" is that it signals a severe lack of respect for the people who rely on our handouts. Poor folks like to eat normal stuff too, you know. There but for the grace of god, and all of that. At least others besides me have been noticing; the cola and the candy bars were removed after a week or so and, I assume, thrown away. As they should have been in the first place.