After sharing the news last week that in March our local food bank area handed out twice as much food as it had taken in, it was interested to bump into fellow volunteers in a local supermarket who were picking up the generous donations from customers. I couldn’t resist saying hello, either. What we had been hearing about a post Christmas slump in donations was confirmed. What had happened and what was happening now?
The reasons for the fall off in donations is mainly anecdotal and conjecture. The only fact is that donations were significantly down. My colleagues, who by the way I was meeting for the first time, felt there were several reasons but the most obvious one was people having no money left after Christmas. We all know how expensive Christmas can be if you allow it to be and those Christmas pay advances used by so many have to paid back, often straight after Christmas. There is only so much Turkey Curry you can make.
Before Christmas, people had been generous donating all manner of hampers, Christmas boxes including presents and other stuff, but once the festive season was over, donations almost collapsed. Don’t get me wrong, it is a wonderful thing that people think of the less fortunate at Christmas, but here’s a thing: food poverty is not just for Christmas. In Britain, it’s permanent.
The cost of living crisis is very relevant too. Again, anecdotally, my colleagues have noted the drop off in numbers of ordinary folk (I regard them as extraordinary if the truth be known) arriving on spec and just leaving bags and boxes of food. People are still doing it, but nowhere near as many as before. This is a worry for everyone.
I am not an expert in working out how much is enough in the donations area of a supermarket but what the volunteers were collecting did appear impressive. The problem was that these donations had to cover not just one local food bank. It was all the local food banks. The initial impression was that while donations of some products had picked up, others had fallen. It was a messy picture.
What worries me is that this is not exactly a post Christmas period. Christmas was over four months ago. It could be that this fall in support for food banks, for whatever reason(s), is not a blip and if it isn’t then we are in for a very difficult summer with people like me having to decide who eats and who doesn’t. Christ, I hope it doesn’t come to that.
