I volunteered at our local food pantry for at least 15 years and learned a lot!! Anything kids can fix for themselves is good - cold cereal is good but try to avoid those with lots of sugar. Any high protein canned item is good. What a lot of people don't realize or think about is that paper products cannot be gotten with food stamps, so we were always in need of kleenex, toilet tissue, etc., as well as hand soap, dish soap, laundry soap, shampoo, deodorant, lotion, that sort of thing. If people can't afford food, they most likely can't afford that stuff either. I used to get margarine, cheese, sandwich meat, etc. from one grocery chain when it was close to being outdated, too. It doesn't hurt to ask, but only if there is refrigerated storage available.