Foodbank

Not very far from me is a foodbank where I volunteer. It is run by a church and in the church. It apparently started about 10 years ago when a homeless person knocked on the vicar's door and asked if he had any spare food. The vicar handed some tinned food over and the  following night, two people stood at the door. The numbers have swelled now to over 400 families per week and has become a highly organised operation.

I joined in 2018, after the death of my mother, when I was seeking something useful to do with my spare time. Even back then, it was still relatively new and not as complicated as it has since become. It opens three times a week (Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays) to hand out bags of food, but back then it had a shower, a washing machine, a sewing machinist to mend clothes, and advice on housing and benefits. On a Friday there is a two-course sit-down cooked meal for guests to eat and a cafe on all three days providing a hot drink and a piece of cake.

When Covid came along, the operation changed. Instead of guests coming into the church and being handed the food on more or less a conveyor belt system, the guests had to queue outside in all weathers and the volunteers had to stand outside (in all weathers) to hand out the bags. This was an attempt to avoid cross-infection of Covid. It has remained to this day that food is handed out outside. It gives a much bigger area inside the church hall to provide the sit-down meals. The shower and washing machine were not available during Covid and remain unused to this day. The advice on housing/benefits remains as does a counsellor for mental health. Some cannot read or write so there is help in filling in forms for council housing or utilities etc. For a while I took over the sewing machine duties, mending tears, unravelled seams or sewing on a button, but after a long while, I found there was little uptake for this and so went back to the food side of things.

Each guest gets a basic bag containing at least 5 tins (soup, tomatoes, baked beans, vegetables and meat/fish) plus a litre of milk and a toilet roll. In addition they  will also get extras of whatever we have in stock that week - maybe pasta or rice or tea or biscuits or shower gel. They also get to pick for themselves from crates of bread,  vegetables and fruit donated by supermarkets. These latter items are not always at their best but nevertheless can be used to make soup or stews. People with children get extra items - more pasta, biscuits, fruit juice, cereal and extra tins. In addition we provide cat and dog food, where available and sanitary ware for women and nappies for babies. Everyone can request extras such as coffee or sugar or washing up liquid or washing powder, if we have them in stock. Most of them stay for the sit-down cooked meal and get to chat to one another.

All guests must register with us on a computer system and only need written proof of address and number of children. No other questions are asked. We recently had to ask for proof of address as some guests were coming from as far afield as other parts of London where they have their own foodbanks. Proof of number of children was to allow us to give out extras to them. They can only visit us once a week, so the computerised registration on arrival each week checks that they have only had the one visit that week.

Demand has far outreached supply - more people needing foodbanks as opposed to less donations during the cost of living crisis. To solve this problem, the church has now been running a charity shop for the last two years in the High Street. It sells clothes, toys, books, ornaments - the usual charity shop stuff - and any profit is ploughed back into the foodbank to buy food in bulk. This has helped no end to keep the stocks high. I also help out in the shop from time to time, either on the till or in the backroom sorting clothing donations and pricing them up. The foodbank has become a huge part of my life. Our local Member of Parliament has taken a very strong interest in the foodbank and I have met him 3 times now, on one occasion when he invited us up to the House of Commons to have a look round and then afterwards discuss the foodbank in one of the parliament committee rooms upstairs.

I help out on a Friday at the foodbank itself and there are usually at least 100 people queuing for over an hour to be served. Since Covid, the numbers have swelled and the cost of living has seen numbers rise even more. The guests are mixed. Some are homeless and sofa-surfing; some are pensioners trying to survive on a basic pension; some lost their jobs during Covid; and others are large families. The latter category intrigues me. There are several women who have six children each and, because of this, can claim a lot of food. They go out with multiple heavy bags groaning with food. They are often very cheeky, taking lots of food out of the returns box, when they are only entitled to swap one item. Or they will snatch more sanitary ware when they think our back is turned. I have seen them getting into their large cars and it does make me wonder if they are taking us for a joke. Many have perfectly manicured nails done in a nail salon (these are not cheap) or tattoos. It does make you wonder about their priorities. How my war-time parents and grandparents would have loved to have a foodbank to go to but made do with no help whatsoever!

Recently a middle-aged woman and her elderly mother took several bags for their family, asked me to help them carry it to their car and, when I got there, it was an enormous one-year old 4x4 MG car rather like this one.

It does make me beg the question whether the foodbank is reaching the wrong people and whether there are some taking us for a laugh. Apart from demanding to see their bank statements, we have to go on trust that they are desperate, but I do sometimes wonder.