Would foodbanks accept spare unused Christmas cards? 11 December 2020 at 3:17PM in Charities 9 replies 213 views

Gloria_Steeth

Hi,

Does anyone know if foodbanks are likely to accept a few unused Christmas cards?

Bought some boxes of assorted Christmas cards and, inevitably, there are some designs I don't like (am way too fussy!). Would normally hand the surplus in to a Salvation Army Centre or similar, but we don't have a car and don't want to travel across town by bus in these covid times if we can help it. The easiest option would be to drop them into the foodbank trolley inside the local supermarket in the hope that some recipients could use them, but if the cards are likely to be automatically discarded when the foodbank donations are uplifted, I'd rather just keep them and use for shopping lists etc. What to do?

Thanks for reading!

Hasbeen

Drop them in. Who knows they might be handy to someone? And while you are there drop some food in as well ?
Some people might not be able to afford the postage on the cards you can afford and are throwing away, but an extra tin of beans might be good?

Gloria_Steeth

@Hasbeen

I always donate some food when I'm at the supermarket! The cards would be "in addition to", not "instead of" food. My thinking was that maybe someone could use the cards to hand to their family, friends or neighbours - no postage required. 

I am genuinely sorry if my post was deemed insensitive or caused offence in any way.

Savvy_Sue

I'd give the foodbank a ring and ask them, but they may well be able to use them, either to pop one in each box later in December, or to send to their volunteers - as long as you don't mind them being used in that way? (I'd suggest it's more likely they'd be used that way than given to clients who need them, because there may well not be enough to be consistent, IYSWIM.)

Gloria_Steeth

@Savvy_Sue

Thank you for your reply. I would be very happy for the foodbank to use them in whichever way they wish. 

Hasbeen

Gloria_Steeth said:

@Hasbeen

I always donate some food when I'm at the supermarket! The cards would be "in addition to", not "instead of" food. My thinking was that maybe someone could use the cards to hand to their family, friends or neighbours - no postage required. 

I am genuinely sorry if my post was deemed insensitive or caused offence in any way.

No problem. Not sure where you got the "Instead of" comment from though? 

203846930

Our local foodbank has a sale of goods about twice a year of all the things other than food that have been donated and not taken by the 'needy'.

Silvertabby

I usually pop sanitary protection and cat food into our supermarket food bank box.  I've had some funny looks from other donors, but I'm sure that my offerings will be appreciated by someone!

Gloria_Steeth

Thank you for your replies, everyone.

Am now rethinking Plan A (foodbank). The supermarket foodbanks are overflowing at the moment so I expect the volunteers have enough to do with sorting out the food donations without starting on random cards as well. On to Plan B, then (a work in progress)!

Gloria_Steeth

Just to update:
Found an old MSE thread while Google-searching for other ideas. It hadn't crossed my mind that charity shops would accept spare cards as I assumed they'd be selling their own charity's cards and wouldn't want other's. Anyway, I went for a long walk this morning while the streets were quiet and popped my cards through the letterbox of one of the smaller charities. Even if they can't sell them, they can give them out to their regular customers or to other volunteers, as @Savvy_Sue suggested. So, that clears some headspace now. Mountain, molehill, eh!

Thank you all once again!