Due to a pre-arranged medical appointment – not made by me, I hasten to add – I had to leave my weekly food bank workplace long before the end today, which I felt more than slightly guilty about because we were very busy. Soon after we opened, we got even busier when people started to arrive with donations. In fact, one family gave us five large bags of shopping, including food, toiletries and pretty well anything someone could need. While it is sad to think that in such a rich country, we choose to live in a society in which some people have too much and others have nothing. And let’s be very clear about this: it is us, The Great British Public, who consistently elect governments who don’t give a toss about food poverty or any poverty for that matter.
We don’t ask much of our callers. We don’t ask why they’re with us – that’s dealt with by the referrers. We don’t ask for ID, either, which I suppose leaves us vulnerable to abuse, but really, if someone is willing to try it on for, say, an extra tin of corned beef, you know that this person’s life probably isn’t the best. If they don’t like something we’re giving them, we let them change it for something they do. I don’t see anything wrong with that. I want everyone to have nice things and things they like rather than not very nice things that they don’t. In any event, people are usually grateful for anything we can give them.
I really like my volunteer and paid colleagues. To a woman and man they are thoroughly nice and decent people. Some of them work – at least one of them full-time – and some run their own businesses. Others, like me, are economically inactive by way of choice or because they’ve retired from the paid workplace. All of us would rather do what we’re doing for nothing rather than working in some tedious, shitty job for the minimum wage. I now look forward to my time in the food bank and have offered to work over Christmas and, if they are short anywhere else in Bristol, to help out there. That’s not me being a wonderful human being who is seeking praise from you, my loyal reader, but because something is driving me on. I’m still trying to work it out, but I think doing good and being respected for doing it could well be factors.
We have loads of advent calendars to hand out, too. I don’t know who donated them but my feeling is it could be supermarkets, given that it’s already 1st December (or 31st November, as my watch says). But thank goodness someone did. Many of our callers have children who probably don’t have many luxuries in their lives so an advent calendar might be a big thing. I have no idea if they existed when I was a child because I never saw one, but I’d have loved one!
When I left, there were still people coming in for help. I wish I could have stayed but needs must. Without our food bank, a lot of people wouldn’t be eating tonight. It’s not right, is it? But right now, it’s essential.
