November 17, 2025
It started on Halloween. Optimistically, I purchased candy, despite not having a single trick-or-treater in 2024—an absence that repeated this year. My son dumped the candy into a big bowl and placed it on our porch with a sign: Delivery drivers, please take and Happy Halloween.
We don’t have a lot of deliveries, but someone took the treats. It happened after dark, just a piece here and there. In the morning, I added cans of soup and black beans, peanut butter, apples, cookies, and energy bars. My son changed his sign to read: Anyone, please take. It’s become a regular fixture on our porch.
Friends across the country have started to add canned soup to their Little Free Libraries. Building on the idea, free pantries are becoming popular around the country: mini-markets outside homes, churches, or nonprofits where people can leave and take nonperishable food, cleaning and hygiene items, and other essential goods.
In this installment of Justice This Week, we’re asking: What does love in action look like? Our intentions may be good, but intentions never fed anybody. When the need is so urgent, from disabled Americans struggling for benefits to immigrant children excluded from schools, justice can feel overwhelming, yet a first step doesn’t have to be large.
Sometimes it’s one can of soup at a time.
Dr. Alison Stine
Climate Justice
Senior Editor
