About the food bank...

Week 3 of the foodbank and I've concluded weeks 1 and 2 were the lull before the storm.

First week I was down in the dunny, putting tins and jars of food into cupboards. Then filling boxes labelled 'Single Person', 'Couple', 'Family of four', etc, ready for us to bag up when clients came in to get them. We 'fed' about 40 people.

Week two I was on the door, meeting clients as they arrived, showing them into the hall where they can have tea, coffee and biscuits while their bags of food are being made up. A couple of people turned up without the 'red slip' that's given out by gps or the Money Matters office in Govan or by the jobcentre. The red slip gets people 3 days of food. Strictly speaking, people shouldn't get anything without a red slip but I'm told no one ever gets sent away empty-handed. I think the number of people getting food was about the same as the first week.

The food quite often comes from donations, some from local organisations like churches and schools. Last week someone said a donation had come in from the Bartenders' Association for Scotland who'd had a Xmas do. Supermarkets also give big donations. Morrison's give vouchers too so the food bank staff can buy what they need. At new year, Tesco gave a huge amount of food. Individual people also come to the door and hand in bags of food. Some things do run short and then the Trussell Trust gives the foodbank managers cash to go and buy what they need.

 If you're thinking of giving a donation, forget the beans, sugar, cornflakes and tins of soup. The food bank has plenty of these. Give tins of meat and fish (protein is good!), toilet rolls, sweeties for the kids, biscuits, coffee (no decaf), pasta shapes. Toiletries are very welcome: packs of razors, shaving foam, toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorants, etc. I imagine when people are off job-hunting they want to look their best. 

This week was a shitstorm. There were people waiting at the door well before the foodbank was due to open. The volunteers had all come in early and we thought we were well-prepared: cupboards full, plenty of boxes made up. As soon as a box was emptied into bags and given out to clients, we re-filled it. I lost track of how often we had to re-fill the boxes, especially the boxes for single people. We have a lot of formerly homeless single men housed in the area. They are all well turned out and very polite. And quiet. Boy, are they quiet. It's obvious some need medical help. I wonder if they get it? One woman was there with her car. She's lost her job and is alone with two kids. Her husband isn't paying child support and her benefits haven't come through. As we took bags out to the car for her, I wondered how many other families would recognise this situation. They do say only 2 months wages stand between a family and the foodbank. And if your family can't help you, you'd right up the creek.

Some of the people who volunteer at the foodbank are themselves on benefits. For some reason ,that really upset me today.

Suddenly, D (in charge in the dunny) said it was twenty to two. We close at two. Boxes of donations appeared from an upstairs store and we piled the stuff into the cupboards, made sure the boxes were made up and generally tidied up so we could see, for example, if there would be enough bags for Thursday. The pile of red slips looked huge. I think the foodbank fed about 70 people this week.

I came home to a letter from my local gp practice, inviting me to a stroke review. There's a questionnaire which includes a section asking what exercise I take and if I want to take more. I reckon 2 1/2 hours working at the foodbank and 2 1/2 hours delivering books to the homebound every week is exercise enough for a woman of 66.