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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: August 7th, 2023

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  • Food bank worker here: though we have no such deal, money with no restrictions on use is just about the best thing to donate. It lets us buy fresh staples that otherwise are hard to come by, like eggs, butter and milk, or seasonally appropriate things like turkeys or hams (we had a total of 3 turkeys donated before Thanksgiving so we purchased around 50).

    Next best thing to donate is whole cases of shelf stable foods. Individual cans and boxes must be inspected for best by date, damage to the packaging and complete labels, which becomes time intensive when you have 15 55 gallon barrels full of cans from food drives. Whole cases give you 12 packages of the same thing, all good to go from the factory.

    Time is also great, but usually more needed the rest of the year. We don’t let people volunteer at our outreach center during the holidays if they don’t volunteer year round, simply because the people who only show up on the holidays tend to be doing a sort of poverty tourism that we find a little distasteful. Also, fresh volunteers need training and things are simply too crazy around the holidays to deal with it. If anyone is interested in food bank work, please find somewhere to volunteer the rest of the year. Feeding people is extremely satisfying work and we do need help the other 11 months of the year.



  • Clothing shrink happens when fibers absorb water/warm up and the edges of their structure (cellulose strands in cotton, protein scales in wool) stand up more and become more likely to catch on their neighbors. When they do, the fibers lose their ability to move independently from each other. As this happens, more and more fibers catch, turning the agitation in your washer and dryer into a sort of ratchet that shrinks the dimensions of the fabric.

    Cotton can be un-shrunk with constant pressure. Ever had 100% cotton jeans tighten up in the wash that feel great after a day of wearing them? They shrunk and then your body undid the shrink. Wool isn’t as forgiving - the aforementioned scales clamp down on each other when they cool and dry and are effectively impossible to get free from each other. Wool can be treated before it is knit or woven into cloth to prevent shrinking and make it safe for the wash. Treated wool usually has a trade name attached to it like Superwash or something similar.