It’s probably not a good idea to turn up to work at a food bank when your mood is near the bottom end of the scale. But my depression rarely saw me take sick leave from paid work and today it wasn’t going to stop me carrying out unpaid work to help the people time, and Rishi Sunak, forgot. It didn’t help that in terms of volunteers we were down to bare bones, two of us establishing what people needed, one signing people in and two packing bags. The packing department was bolstered by one of our paid administrators who is leaving tomorrow in order to start a job with slightly better, or less bad, pay. We will miss him greatly and because he is staying in the third sector, many people wouldn’t get out of bed to earn what he will be earning. It’s weird, though inevitable, that an organisation that exists to alleviate poverty does not have the resources to pay people a salary more commensurate with the work they perform.
If I was jaded to start with, I was proper knackered by the end. Although the number of referrals wasn’t at the top end, we were flat out for the best part of 3.5 hours. As well as seeing and helping people, we prepare hot and cold drinks, provide them with snacks and then tidy the church hall by putting the furniture away, washing up and vacuuming the floor. (God is quite strong on this tidying malarkey but not so much on ending food poverty. He moves in mysterious ways and I am very glad I don’t know him.)
Of the three people front of house, I was by far the youngest person there. Both of my colleagues were well into their seventies and seemed to have far more energy than I did. I just buried my head in the work and before I knew it, the food bank closing time of 3.00pm had passed. However, more than an hour elapsed by the time I emerged in the glorious spring sunshine.
During the session, one service user stood out more than the rest. They were in late middle age and severely disabled, getting round on a Motability scooter. Just this week, their PIP benefit had been reduced by £300 a month and, at a stroke, they had no money for food. They had never been to a food bank before, had no idea what to do and were very upset at being there in the first place. They had appealed the DWP decision but that process would take time. We sorted out some food and after a very long wait, they were off and on their way. We applied society’s sticking plaster. This was never going to be a permanent fix.
When the session was over, I started to collect the tables and chairs for stacking and one of my colleague’s got the vacuum cleaner. Two of our service users helped collect the furniture, without me asking (I never would) and another insisted on vacuuming the floor. My loyal reader will have noted that this has happened before and it always moves me. One service user said, when I thanked them, “You’re giving me £30 of food. It’s the least I can do.”
As I got in the car to drive home, I had one of those “Why do I bother?” moments. It’s important to be honest about how I feel. We had five people who worked their respective arses off for no reward, other than the grateful thanks of those we had helped. I felt like that for much of the way home. There are all these people, I kept thinking, who show off about their great lives on social media and do nothing to help the less fortunate. It did not take long for me to return to my senses and remember that actually I was there because I wanted to be and if others chose to either do nothing or to show their support for the less well-off perhaps in a more private way, instead of in a very public blogging way as I do, then maybe I should give my head a big wobble. But that’s me: an illogical, irrational twat who sees the world almost entirely in black and white. How dare I look down on others whose lives I know nothing about? Why do I bother? Because I want to.
I’m not sure of the current food situation at our food bank. The shelves aren’t exactly bursting at the seams but there does seem to be just enough to go round. The main thing we lack is bags for people to take their food away in. When I started, we had plenty of decent quality bags from Morrisons. Now, we’re reduced to using very thin plastic bags which we need to use two of for every bag of shopping. Putting them together challenges my ADHD more than you could ever imagine.
Hopefully, there will be more of us next week. You can’t knock people taking time off – they’re working for nothing, after all – and I’ll be doing it soon, thank god. The way I felt today, albeit briefly, was that of burn out. It soon passed, but I do wonder is this volunteering malarkey could have a limited shelf-life. I hope not because I think I am making a difference. Hopefully, I’ll be in a better place next week and I won’t even think of that possibility.
