Commodities/Free food?

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Does anyone get the free commodities the government gives out regularly. I understand it's for anyone, don't have to meet a ceratin income requirement. What's been your experience doing so?

-- Cindy (S.E.IN) (atilrthehony_1@yahoo.com), April 01, 2002

Answers

I don't know if ther is anywhere around here that still does this. I know when we were kids the used to give it out at a local church. They gave away honey, peanut butter, powdered milk, rice, and some very good American cheese. We still talk about how good that cheese was!

-- Melissa in SE Ohio (me@home.net), April 01, 2002.

are you referring to food stamps? what commodities?

-- Stan (sopal@net-pert.com), April 01, 2002.

It is not food stamps. I believe that the government pays farmers for some certain products and then they process them and use them for school lunch programs, and to give out to the "poor" and elderly people. But I have not seen them passed out around here for years. I do remember you had to have a certain income level. Maybe someone knows more about the current programs.

-- Melissa in SE Ohio (me@home.net), April 01, 2002.

I didn't know they did that here either. The cheese, I was told, now goes to foreign countries. It was good. Supposedly they don't go by income any more. I don't think they should either.

-- Cindy (S.E.IN) (atilrthehony_1@yahoo.com), April 01, 2002.

Last I heard from my son who volunteers, local food banks give them out once a month. They now go by how many you have in your family. It's usually not much at all, but any extra can help families. Toni

-- Toni (anothermother@hotmail.com), April 01, 2002.


It was my understanding that those were overages in various products (butter, cheese, etc.) that were given away rather than wasted. Part of the farmer subsidy thing, better to have overages and pay the farmers higher than the market price, rather than have huge shortages.

They used to publish notices for that regularly--I haven't seen any in some time that are not connected to income in some way (I think it should connect to income, imho).

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), April 01, 2002.


Dave's sister gets food from a local food bank occasionally. It is all goverment packaged stuff, but no cheese. Stuff like canned aspargus, plums, cherries, pears, applesauce, ect.. and pasta, rice, and powdered milk. She also gets some dried fruits , which are wonderful, like cherries, cranberries, and figs, prunes, rainsins, and trail mix. She cant eat nuts or other dried fruits so she gives them to me. Which is really sweet of her. She also gets canned juices like grapefruit, orange, pineapple, apple, ect... ( some times she gets cranberry). There are no income guidlines, just ask how many are in your family.

-- Kristean Thompson (pigalena_babe@yahoo.com), April 01, 2002.

The commodity stuff here had cheese years ago. It was the nasty processed synthocheese. My MIL got some ONCE.

-- Rose (open_rose@hotmail.com), April 01, 2002.

There is a program called SHARE in most areas. You have to do a couple hours of community service and you pay $15. We did this a couple times, but found most of the food was not stuff we eat. It was lots of processed stuff. Also, there just wasn't a whole lot of it! Others have told us they got big boxes of food for the $15, but we hgot only 1 or 2 plastic grocery bags. I felt I could do better by discount & coupon shopping for items I really wanted.

-- ellie (elnorams@aol.com), April 01, 2002.

They seem to still have commodities in some of the larger towns, but there are income guidelines. Sr. citizens and families with small children are usually served first, and I have been told that they have very long lines. Used to be, you just went and stood in line, first come, etc. I run our local food bank and most of our stuff comes from the regional warehouse out of Grand Junction. They get stuff that has been donated by companies and chain groceries and salvage. We buy it at 19cents a lb. We also take donations from individuals to buy the things we can't get from the warehouse. A friend of mine has mentioned also that a lot of the commodities are given to Indians on the reservations. Also, the govt has cut back on the amount of food they buy from farmers for price support and just pay them not to produce it in the first place!

-- kim in CO (kimk61252@hotmail.com), April 02, 2002.


When I was a kid the gov. used to give it out to low income retirees ,now days it seems that our gov. will do any thing to help out all these imigrants that we take in with open arms ,but nothing to help out americans that really need help , seems these days that if your not a foreigner you don`t get help in this country.

-- David Zimmerman (dez62588@aol.com), August 03, 2002.

Does anyone know how you can get the free milk from the government for your private school. My granddaughter goes to a private school and they would like to know how to get the free milk.

-- Mae (doubled@shentel.net), September 06, 2002.

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