#but if my cool ass followers could reblog this and help spread the word i'll love you forever

[wyn-n-tonic]

Some things to consider if you are donating hygiene products to shelters/food banks (if you have the means):

Unscented soap for sensitive skin. (Dove and Ivory are so good for this but I know there are store brands).

Unscented lotion! Lotion isn't a very highly donated product and, when it is, it tends to be very fragrant. This is a problem because fragrant lotions contain a lot of alcohol in them which in turn dries the skin out and is not very good for people with sensitive skin or skin issues and is definitely an issue for houseless people who are more exposed to the elements outside.

Body/deodorant wipes.

Deodorant sticks and sprays.

Regular chapstick. Burt's Bees contains beeswax and Carmex/Blistex are medicated, all can make chapped lips worse and you can actually develop an allergy to their ingredients.

Adult diapers. People donate baby diapers and they donate feminine hygiene products but donations of adult diapers are few and far between and shelters/food banks see a lot of traffic from new, healing mothers or older children with developmental disabilities or elderly members of our population.

First aid kits.

Activities for kids (cheap coloring books and some crayon packs, fidget toys, little puzzles). It may seem silly to some but I once got to tell a mom that I included some little age appropriate toys for her kiddos and I will think about her reaction and the hug she gave me for the rest of my life.

Blankets. Little fleecey throw blankets are so important and are, unfortunately, the difference between life and death during these colder months.

Underwear and socks. I have had people tell me that they don't want to donate underwear because they feel like it's creepy. It's not creepy. These are basic necessities and they are often times hardly donated and asking for help at all is hard but asking for more personal items like underwear can be downright embarrassing. Especially when it's not available. People are less likely to ask in the future when that happens (especially if treated or looked at judgmentally when they ask).

Hair products for different hair types. A lot of these organizations serve minority populations in our communities because the system has been set up to keep non-white people down and in poverty (anybody can experience poverty but, please remember that systemic racism plays a huge role in why these services are desperately needed and horribly underfunded). Hair products like shampoo and conditioner are donated but it's 99.9% of the time going to be very cheap products that aren't good for any hair type but definitely are not good for people with coarse hair or curly/kinky hair. If you have the means, please consider donating some products specifically formulated for Black hair. I am not somebody who needs those products so I don't have much knowledge into the brands that are actually good. So I do encourage anybody who can help with a list of products they'd recommend to reblog this and add those items on.

And if all of that is just too overwhelming of a list but you would like to do something, call around to some local schools and ask if they have some lunch debt you can pay off for some babies. If you want to go further, ask if you can put some money on the books for some of the kids so that they can have a hot meal because, unfortunately, school lunches are often times the only time some of these babies have a hot meal. And having to do that at all is a failure of our society and government that desperately needs to be fixed but if we can help ease the burden of struggling parents on the road to that goal, then I think we should do that because it really does take a village but the extreme individualism mindset of this country has left so many people behind.