Food Banks - from the other side

Very kind of you to give us this first hand experience, Lily. So glad you were received warmly and hope you will soon be back giving donations. I wish you well.

I work in an NHS community team ...we have food bank vouchers we can give out where a need is seen....we can also refer to our local salvation army who can provide £35 morrosons voucher or another l9cal charity who can provide £20 electric top up card.....then we can ( and very often do) refer to baby banks who provide any necessary baby equipment and clothing..... there is also a local scheme with argos where we can refer for a £300 voucher for furniture item.....we do loads and loads of these referrals....seen a massive increase since covid started

Hope life deals you a better hand soon OP

I'm glad you had good experience LilyoftheValley, a few of my friends volunteer at our local bank. I'm in the NE and a young girl has started a 'pet food bank' which is being well used, hopefully people will be able to keep their pets.

Doodledog

I'm another who is pleased your experience was positive, LOTV. It is disgraceful that foodbanks are needed in one of the richest countries in the world, but it's good that there was one there when you needed it.

Good luck with getting back to where you started from.

Doodlbugs my sentiments completely. Whilst the millionaires become billionaires, the need for such things as charity food banks, etc is a total disgrace. However, with a right wing Tory government thank goodness these are there.

Lily I'm so pleased you had such a good experience & warm welcome.
Last week I took my next door neighbour to a local foodbank as he mentioned to his daily carer he was having problems paying his heating bills and had to cut down on his weekly shop,he arranged for him to visit the foodbank and I offered to take him.
They have arranged to send him a delivery of staples every week for the next few weeks which is such a godsend to him.

Baggs

Your "Communities Party" chimes with my wondering as I read this thread (so glad you were treated kindly, LOTV, and got things you needed when desperate), what happened before food banks and before government sponsored 'welfare'? I'm guessing members of communities supported each other as far as they were able, though no doubt some still fell through whatever nets there were.

If you want to know what happened before food banks and before government sponsored 'welfare' (why the inverted commas?) I suggest you read some social history. You could start with Engel's study of the working classes in Manchester, read some Dickens, Mayhew, perhaps some reports of 19thC government inquiries into sanitary conditions, housing conditions etc. Maud Pember Reeves 'Round About a Pound a Week' is an interesting survey of the Edwardian working person's family living on what was considered (by the elite) to be a good wage. I know there is masses more that would tell you what you want to know.

All this misty eyed stuff about 'community' is all very well. People will always, on the whole, want to help out their friends and neighbours if at all possible, it's instructive that the people most likely to donate to food banks are those on quite low incomes themselves (more empathy perhaps?) but doing nothing to remove the causes of poverty, to rely on 'community' and charity, is not adequate.

P.S I know just what DasiyAnne is getting at, and it isn't sneering at state help in favour of 'community spirit'. It's about the state enabling communities to be more involved in local planning and decision making.