There is plenty of food to go around. Some of us buy too much of it, others throw too much away. Although sometimes the supermarkets are short of products, no one should go hungry. No one should go hungry, but of course they do and that’s where food banks come in. And while I am well used to the experience of seeing food poverty at first hand, it never fails to amaze me how society can possibly accept the existence of food banks as being somehow normal.
As I have said before, my interview with food bank recipients begins with two comments. I am not going to ask for ID because someone has already done that and I am not going to ask why they are here, because they wouldn’t be here if no one had referred them. The assumption is that every case is genuine and that they are who they say they are. Then, my job is to take their food requests from the options we give them, pass that list onto my colleagues in the store cupboard who then pack the bags and finally hand them over to the caller.
We have had some repeat callers in recent weeks, something I pointed out to the manager. Some appear to be coming in every week. I am not suggesting for one moment that some people are trying it on but here’s the thing: Bristol’s food banks are running low on stocks and we are near the point where we will have to ration our resources. Rationing resources would mean sharing even more pain across the board to help the many. I hope this makes sense. The trouble is that the pain is very real. It’s like robbing the poor Peter to pay the even poorer Paul.
I saw a family member today who came to see us because they had no food left. The husband had two full time jobs, but despite that al their money had gone this week because of fuel bills. They had nothing left for food. Like I said, I don’t assess this stuff and I am used to cases like these, but it honestly makes me mad. Just the other day, it was reported that the prime minister’s wife Akshata Murthy had shares in a childcare company just after a budget in which Sunak’s government handed that company large sums of government money, yet Murthy is already worth £750 million. How much money do two people need? How much is enough? I am seeing people without a pot to piss in but the rich get richer and richer courtesy of influential family members. Anyway, we gave them several bags of stuff which I hope will alleviate their current stresses.
We also had some Easter bags to hand out, which were very well received by the children who accompanied their parents. I am pretty sure that without them, many of these kids would have had nothing for Easter which I know from my own experience is a horrible feeling when everyone around you is stuffing their faces. One child was halfway through their Easter bag before they even left the food bank. The smile that came with it was worth a million dollars.
I’d imagine we will be quite busy next week, what with it being Easter and all that. I’ll be there on Maundy Thursday at the same time King Charles will be handing out Maundy Money to commemorate *checks notes* Jesus washing the feet of the apostles at the last supper, which is a weird thing to commemorate. I hope he can spare a few bob to help those who have literally nothing and while he’s at it he might be able to persuade Mrs Sunak to donate a few quid. Sadly, I suspect she’s probably too busy dreaming up new ways of making extra money. The gap between the have loads and the have fuck alls grows bigger every week.
