Kansas City Food Blog

Use peanut butter to pay off your library fines

​If you owe the Kansas City Public Library a little dough -- you know, as in overdue fines -- you have until Sunday, October 18, to pay off that lingering debt and relieve your guilt by doing something good for the community.

This is Food for Fines Week at all the library branches. Library patrons who haven't paid overdue book fines are encouraged to being in "undamaged and unexpired boxed or canned non-perishable food items to any library location in exchange for one dollar reduction per item in overdue fines."

All of the food items will be donated to Harvesters: The Community Food Network, Kansas City's only food bank. It provides assistance for emergency food pantries, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, children's homes, homes for the mentally disabled and shelters for battered persons.

The most needed items? Canned meat, peanut butter, canned fruits and vegetables and boxed meals. And consider yourselves warned: The librarians will not accept dented cans, nor will they take non-nutritional beverages such as soda, or beverages in glass or plastic containers.