So . . . my elderly mom plays cards at her local public senior center. From the discussions they have there, she learned about public assistance programs, and she has signed herself up for all manner of public assistance including food stamps and getting "hampers" of food from the local mission. We live on opposites sides of the country and I didn't know she had done that until a recent visit. Since her social security income is extremely low, and she didn't save for retirement, I am not opposed to her participating in these programs.
But, the weird thing is the sheer amount of food she has accumulated. She's a little old lady who barely moves around, so she eats like a bird. She cooks from scratch and she's always been really thrifty to a level that would survive the great depression, so she uses the food stamps to buy staples and the cheapest possible version of everything when it is on sale. But instead of telling the mission that she should be taken off of their "holiday hamper" list, for example, she just accumulates and accumulates. Food has built up to overflow her gigantic walk-in closet of a pantry, expired batches of things riddle her fridge, canned goods starting to pile up on her kitchen counters, etc.
For awhile she was trying to fob some of the excess off on my brother and his family, who live nearby. They have a pretty large garden and would rather make their own choices about what food they eat, so they have declined forcefully enough times that she gave up.
So now she reports taking it to the food bank sometimes, which is a good thing. She still has a dragon's pile of food at her house, but at least she has an outlet for all of the excess. The whole cycle just strikes me as weird, though I suppose it gives her something to do. She clearly is proud that she donates to the food bank, since she mentions it pretty much every time I talk to her, so there's that.
