Hazmat, Food Pantry, and Cops

I do a few hazmat shops and I mail food items to a food pantry in the zone 5 area; sometimes I send a bag of rice, sometimes candy, sometimes water, etc. I was out doing MS yesterday and my security alarm goes off at my house. I look and see cops are knocking on my door. I contact them and ask what they needed because I could not even guess since I don't do anything for cops to come looking for me. Come to find out, the food pantry contacted the cops in my area to tell me not to send them anything anymore. The shop's instruction state we can send to food pantries. After this, I would suggest not doing it. I never had cops called on me for sending to a food pantry. I found out after I get to my second job that the cops had gone looking for me at my second job. I guess you can imagine my surprise!

I've tried sending to "For Sale" house addresses I find on the internet but when they are returned to me, I feel crazy because I am sure my mail woman wonders why all these boxes are returned to me.

If the businesses I use to send these packages are doing their jobs, the packages wouldn't ever be mailed. But, that's not how it's working right now.

So, how do you all handle sending to zone 5?

Shopping Arkansas, Louisiana, & Mississippi.

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My ZIP is 691. Check with USPS and if that's Zone 5 for you, you can ship me all the one pound bags of rice you want!!!

Oh wow! Thank you! You are in zone 1 from where I am. But, that was awful sweet of you to offer.

Shopping Arkansas, Louisiana, & Mississippi.

According to my ZIP code locator, AR, LA, and MS are all in Zone 5 or Zone 6. I'm wondering how you came up with Zone 1? I am in Nebraska, which is over l,000 miles from you.

My sister in California -- sure to be further than Zone 5 for you -- feeds the homeless and would be DELIGHTED to receive dried beans and/or rice!

My zone 5 is Pittsburg or surrounding. I wonder what California is.

Shopping Arkansas, Louisiana, & Mississippi.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/2018 03:15PM by ArkLaMissshopping.

Nice

Shopping Arkansas, Louisiana, & Mississippi.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2023 09:52PM by ArkLaMissshopping.

712 is Zone 5 from 691. I am as far from you as you are from Pittsburgh!

My sister is in ZIP 955.

In fact, I am 200 miles further from you that you are from Pittsburgh.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/2018 03:30PM by ceasesmith.

Then, I can send you all the rice you can stand! Ha-ha! It does show zone 1* when I check on your area. Not sure what the * means.

Shopping Arkansas, Louisiana, & Mississippi.

My zip is 49509. You can ship to me.

Thank you, Zephyr. You're in my zone 5! 955 is zone 8. They say zone 8 costs more to ship then zone 5. I wonder by how much?

Shopping Arkansas, Louisiana, & Mississippi.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/2018 05:52PM by ArkLaMissshopping.

You are Zone 5 for me! That might be a good arrangement.

I have also found that the food pantries don't actually want food, though I've never had the cops called!

I have been sending donations of toys, food and treats to an animal rescue that is Zone 5 for me. They also have a thrift shop to raise funds for the rescue and I have sent clean donations to them as well. I usually include a note along the lines of "I appreciate what you do and I hope this small donation helps in some way toward your bigger efforts." I even got a super nice note back from the manager of the thrift shop saying that all donations help, big or small. Made my day!

@ceasesmith wrote:

My ZIP is 691. Check with USPS and if that's Zone 5 for you, you can ship me all the one pound bags of rice you want!!!

I just found a very easy site to see zones: [www.easypost.com]. Just put in the to and from zip code and it tells you the zone. Come to find out cease is in my zone. Even though the postal service site said zone 1.

Pro Evals-Audits - I guess I freaked them out by sending them 1-2 pounds of items. LOL, I am sure they don't normally get a 1 pound bag of rice to feed all them many people. If I ever send to another pantry, which I doubt I ever will, I will put my phone number under my address. Call me directly. No need for cops to get involved.

Shopping Arkansas, Louisiana, & Mississippi.

I ship to zone 8 all the time. It has not been an issue for me. $12.90 to zone 8 now so as long as you use a free box or bag you are okay. Even the outside vendors charge under $17 here but it is a good idea to check prices with them before you mail something to zone 8.

I would think the thrift shops and animal rescue places do not get that many donations of large quantities while the food pantries around here get bulk donations from grocers and other food suppliers so their tolerance for accepting small packages with one pound of rice might be lower. They might also be wary of tainted food. Just the other day my resident rat got into a bag of rice I left in my carport. Anyone could have just re bagged it and given it to the food bank. They have to be careful of consistent quality of the food they give out.

It's a complete waste of time and resources for a food pantry to open a box that has a $1 bag of rice in it. They're probably pissed too.

It was worse when people were sending the Dim Weight boxes to them.

I have a great zone 5 shipping buddy. We have been mailing the same few boxes back and forth for a few years now. If you end up needing a hazmat shipping partner, you are welcome to use my address. I'm in zone 6 from you.

"We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl -- year after year..."

SoCalMama, you're right. I am sure they were pissed. sandyf has good insight, too. msimon-2000, thank you for the offer as a shipping partner.

I think I have three or four hazmats coming up the first of next week. I was thinking about not doing any more until all of your suggestions have helped me. I don't have a problem with the regular shipping; just the hazmat. I always send to my family members for the regular shop but, I have no family members in zone 5-8.

Shopping Arkansas, Louisiana, & Mississippi.

Animal rescues, what a great idea!

I bet animal rescues would be happy with 1-2 pounds of food, treats, chews, etc.

Shopping Arkansas, Louisiana, & Mississippi.

I have tried to send my recent hazmat shop packages but the post office has not accepted them (doing their job), so I have the same boxes in my trunk...I have some regular box shops next week so should be able to send them then!

The two I just sent that got the cops called me were declined from a non-postal company. I carried them around for a bit, too. They were declined because they said USPS can't validate the address but, FedEx could. So, they were declined. All I can say is ceasesmith needs to get ready for a lot of packages coming her way...lol. I do quite a bit.

Shopping Arkansas, Louisiana, & Mississippi.

With these lunatics mailing bombs, it is understandable that shelters are on high alert when receiving unknown packages. Try calling them first.

"I told myself to quit you; but I don't listen to drunks." -Chris Stapleton

Good idea, HonnyBrown.

Shopping Arkansas, Louisiana, & Mississippi.

Probably no one wants to blow up animal shelters and these idiots only want to blow up Democrats. The world is so screwed up.

I've always just used the USPS website...

@ArkLaMissshopping wrote:

I just found a very easy site to see zones: [www.easypost.com]. Just put in the to and from zip code and it tells you the zone.

You are probably right about the recent spate of mail bombs but food banks serve many of who might be viewed as similar to the immigrant population that is marching up towards us right now and being labeled as terrorists. Any group can be a target when It comes to those who have no compunction about killing total strangers just because they belong to some group or other.

@JASFLALMT wrote:

Probably no one wants to blow up animal shelters and these idiots only want to blow up Democrats. The world is so screwed up.

BTW, the bomber used stamps, which should have been an obvious clue immediately.

Whaaaat, he didn't want to go through the line to the counter and have someone ask him, "Is there anything fragile, liquid, perishable, or potentially hazardous such as lithium batteries or perfume?"

Hey, do they need to change that to..."such as lithium batteries, perfumes, or bombs?"

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/04/2018 09:55PM by JASFLALMT.

JAs you beat me to that very reply. But aside from that perhaps the bomber is a mystery shopper who has lots of stamps from Hazmat shops they want to use up. And to top that off knows that 80% or so of the hazmat packages are accepted anyway even if they say no.

@JASFLALMT wrote:

Whaaaat, he didn't want to go through the line to the counter and have someone ask him, "Is there anything fragile, liquid, perishable, or potentially hazardous such as lithium batteries or perfume?"

Hey, do they need to change that to..."such as lithium batteries, perfumes, or bombs?"

Oh that's funny, though it shouldn't be.

Actually, they will be adding Mercury to the list. I am not sure when it will change, but I was told that at the Post Office last month.

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