I'm here nicknaming 'Little Pantry' as a parallel to the 'Little Library' book boxes you see distributed here and there. I've got three examples, two personal a

I'm here nicknaming 'Little Pantry' as a parallel to the 'Little Library' book boxes you see distributed here and there. I've got three examples, two personal and one aspirational for me. Do you ever waver about what to do when you see someone standing on the side of the road with a sign asking for some kind of help? I'll skip the internal and external debates to tell you what my wife and I currently do. 1. At the smallest scale, we keep a handful of $10 McDonald's gift cards in the driver's side pocket door of our cars, suitable for handing out our windows quickly when we are moved to do so. [Reference Chris Arnade and his book 'Dignity' and various articles he's written about Mcdonalds, eg. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/mcdonalds-as-america-a-conversation-with-chris-arnade/ https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/mcdonalds-as-america-a-c...] 2. One step up from there, my wife puts together gallon zip-loc bags with basics, e.g. water bottle, socks, toothbrush/paste, protein bars, etc. Sometimes also McDonald's cards. These get handed out in the same fashion as above. 3. I've got friends who do this at the scale of keeping 50lb bags of rice, beans, and other staple foods, binning them out in 1-2 week portions, and delivering them, along with similar-sized portions of e.g. potatoes, carrots, onions, etc to needy families they know. They deliberately cultivate not only the giving of things, but the development of relationships with those in need (which is all of us, sooner or later.) We're looking at how to step up to this level.