AIBU to ask for advice on what to do about a lady in our community.

You sound such a nice caring person and I hope you have a lovely holiday. You’ve done this lady some huge favours and I hope you get sick together. She’s certainly getting stronger if she’s walking a big dog.

Fine - so tell her the truth about you not being able to collect it and consider it an opportunity (along with the holiday) to explain that you won't be able to give ongoing help

Then the issue is she needs to reclaim PIP. It takes a while to go through the process, months sometimes, so she's going to have to strictly budget for now. If she won't get rid of the dog (understandable, it could be her only reason for living at this point) then she needs to prioritise food for herself and the dog and cut absolutely everything else, including heating, insurances etc. she may well also need to go into debt until her PIP claim is approved and her back pay comes through, which she can then use to pay off her debts.

Her local council might help, in my area they have a support team that is separate to social services and they can provide tenancy support (it's fine if she's a home owner too, it's for helping people like her deal with the basics of life and get back on their feet).

It's unrealistic to expect people to fetch and carry for her, unless she's organising a supermarket delivery or has a charity willing to collect food then she'll need to get herself into a position to take a taxi to the pantry etc if public transport isn't an option, even if that's a credit card for now.
The PIP process is also really really shit to go through so if she's able to survive on others help she may not be desperate enough to claim it, as horrible as that sounds if you want to protect your own time and energy you may have to get tough with her.

She may also need to look at moving somewhere else cheaper, if she's living somewhere that's too big or too difficult/tiring to navigate regularly with her disability. Downsizing If she's a homeowner. If she's in social housing she needs to contact them because they may have a budgeting team who could help. If she's private renting she needs to accept food is more important at this moment than becoming homeless, which can't happen overnight anyway, it takes months to evict someone.

She sounds like she just has no clue where to go for help at the moment and has left it too late until she's actually run out of money before asking for help

I’m sure if you ask on your local fb group there will be lots of stories about her from people she has asked to help her and have been scammed by her! People like her sell everything they are given

Block her - she’s a scammer and you are her latest victim

Didn’t you say your husband said he would drop this parcel off for her?

Why doesn’t she contact the food pantry directly and ask whether someone can drop it off? She’s showing signs of CFery, time to back off, OP.

she has contacted again asking very nicely where it is

Cheeky madam. I hope you replied that you volunteer with the garden group, not the food bank, and she needs to sort herself out.

“She's texted the phone saying she has nobody else !”.

I’m sorry to say that she has made her problems your responsibility, which they’re not. What was she doing before she rang your volunteer gardening charity? I guess someone else must have helped her then.

As others have suggested, write out a list if local charities, organisations and council offices that can help her and then leave the ball in her court. If she rings again, refer her to the list. Unfortunately, some people rely on others and don’t take agency for themselves.

(and definitely say you’l be unavailable, and be vague about dates).

I've no car now to collect so I'd have to walk down and drop it off on foot. Unfortunately I don't have time and she has contacted again asking very nicely where it is ... She's texted the phone saying she has nobody else !

Yes, on the basis of experience I'm afraid I expected that to happen

As PPs have said approaching a gardening club seems an odd choice, and it's probably true she's doing this with others

In any case you don't tell someone who's helped out a couple of times that you have noone else, so as suggested I'd deliver the list of help sources along with the shopping, tell the truth that you'll be travelling (no need to give timescales) then back right off

She will have other people running after her I'd be sure of it.
Just reply saying "i cant help anymore." Or stop replying and if you need to block the number
If she can track down your number and guilt trip you and manage her large dog (who was thing care of him while she was in hospital btw) she isnt helpless.

Agree. And I would gently suggest that if she went to the trouble of tracking your number down, even though it were not advertised as a relevant support group, she may have contacted other services herself and have several people doing similar or perhaps done so previously and exhausted their goodwill.

OP I manage a service that provides support to vulnerable people and I understand your desire to help this woman. However, as with families who contact us, please remember when she says she can’t do xyz because of abc, that she was able to call you. This demonstrates that she can reach out to others if she wants/needs to. She doesn’t need you to do it for her. She may well want you to do it for her, but this is not a need. As others have said, set boundaries for yourself.

If she has a (large) dog then someone would need to be walking it otherwise it would go crazy. Can you ask her who is walking the dog?

I used to help.out at a community larder where we had a "help yourself table" and there is always one just swoping in!

You’ve taken her food… so she’s out of the immediate crisis. She now needs to make her own enquiries.

You should have a Safeguarding policy and DSO even if the organisation is small and that should give you a framework to refer such cases. She may have temporarily had Pip stopped but that is no excuse for exploiting your goodwill and you need to have firmer boundaries. Yours was not the correct route for her to access practical support, so have a list of relevant local organisations to hand for signposting in future. One of your service users may find themselves in such a situation in future. Unfortunately good intentions are not always rewarded, there is a local community fridge where a particular person seems to know when it gets stocked up and is less supervised and has been seen to clear it out on more than one occasion.

This is a good idea. Definitely don’t go into the house - just to keep a boundary. Later I would leave one text saying glad we could assist you temporarily, signed by The Local Gardening Charity. Don’t answer any more calls.

Like i said, she has targetted your group and exploting your kindness, it happens, you just need to decide how much you want to do, it is fine to do nothing else though.

I think print her a comprehensive list of charities, social assistance, mosques, local vicar etc and give it to her with her delivery.