Food bank Fussiness

[VeronicaFranklin]

I volunteer at a local food bank on a Saturday morning, recently due to cost of living we've had more and more people using it.

All sorts of people, some working families, some exclusively on benefits, some elderly, retired due to ill health and some homeless / alcohol/ drug addiction. There really is no face to food poverty and it's very sad to see so many people struggling to feed themselves and their families. I feel glad there are places people can turn to if they need help...

However...

We give people a sheet when they arrive, they tick a number of items (depending on if they are a family/couple/single person) they wish to have, I go off to pack up their items.

More recently I've had people complain if they wanted something we had a previous week but don't have this week, i.e. requesting Frosties and we only have Cornflakes, or Semi skimmed milk but we only have skimmed. One lady said to me on Sat when I didn't have the soup she liked ' well it just isn't good enough'...

Also people arguing with us if say someone has received a certain brand (donated) and they haven't. For example someone got 'Asda's own washing up liquid and saw someone had got 'Fairy' brand washing up liquid and started complaining it wasn't fair...

I just feel really disappointed. Everyone is entitled to help and most people are very thankful but we rely solely on donations and charity surplus to run the food bank, many of the volunteers give up their time to help even when their circumstances aren't much better than those using the food bank and we often buy items to bring to cover the shortfall in donations especially toiletries such as sanitary towels and toothpaste, but I can't help feeling recently like people are being ungrateful.

Is it unreasonable if you're getting something for free to feel you're entitled to complain? How would you handle it?

I find myself saying something like that a lot these days, it does become wearing.

A colleague with far less patience had an unexpected solution.

Client: Oh, don't you have this in a different flavour? I don't like this on.
Colleague: Oh, sorry [and removed said item]

time passes...

Client: Am I getting a different flavour?
Colleague: Oh! No, we don't have any more.. and I have just given that one to A N Other.
Client: [looking shell shocked] leaves

I am not often left speechless but that floored me. Mind you said Client had also scoured the Help Yourself Shelf and taken numerous items. Most people take one or two.

Sometimes people act outside their usual selves when they are in need. Foodbanks do seem to bring out the best and worst in some people.

@VeronicaFranklin
I too am shocked at the sheer and entitlement of some food bank people ...This is nothing new!
A neighbour used to go to an older person's group and members would come from the food bank and be moaning about what they had been given!
''I don't like this and this, or that'' ..often giving the stuff they didn't like.
Ditto donated {New} clothes!
Neighbour got so cross they she said ''Beggars can't be choosers''...
It is the type of person complaining who expects everything for nothing, and knows their way around the benefits system...

If someone is genuinely in need of a food bank, they'd not be giving stuff away , saying ''I don't like Cheerios'' or Thick cut marmalade &c&c

That's an awful idea. It's totally lady bountiful.

It's perfectly reasonable to put up posters saying abusive behaviour towards volunteers will not be accepted (and enforcing that) or that all items are donated so you have no control over what is in stock but "be kind" or "say thank you" Is so patronising.

I assume most people there would prefer to be able to afford to go shopping and buy their own. Why make them feel worse than they presumably already do?

There are gobshites everywhere. While you should not have to tolerate
aggressive or abusive behaviour, if you can't cope with a bit of moaning, maybe you should volunteer in a non-public facing role.

You nearly twisted yourself in two there, persuading yourself that it's better for someone to have takeaways and use foodbanks so that the local economy benefits.

Why should volunteers find better ways of coping with rude service users? The rude service users are the ones who need to change their behaviour, not the other way around. I disagree that people shouldn't be grateful to those who volunteer. I think we should all be grateful.

The posts get more and more idiotic and downright nasty by the minute don't they?

Has anyone else now set up a regular payment to their local food bank on the back of this thread? I was thinking about it anyway but it's made my mind up. The local food bank often put out requests for donations of specific items; at least this way they can buy what they need directly.

This thread is going to discourage people supporting food banks.You should get it removed

I've worked in customer facing roles for over 20 years and have noticed a shift towards the public generally becoming more demanding and rude in recent times. It's cretainly not just a trait of those who are struggling financially.

If there's a manager or someone more senior working at the FB, I would expect them to step in and back you up with some of the more difficult clients. I own a shop and have given our counter assistants basic training on handling more dificult customers. However, they know to come get me if someone is being particularly rude, as I don't expect my colleagues to deal with abuse in the workplace.

All these people being critical of the op, how much volunteering do you do?
I volunteer for a charity (not a food bank) and we are desperately short of volunteers. People are working longer, caring for grandchildren etc so not available to volunteer.
The average age of our volunteers is 74 and frankly the ones in their 80’s aren’t able to do the full job.
If we only took on ‘perfect’ volunteers the charity would fold. So let the op have a bit of a moan in a anonymous forum, we all do it.

No one says that we shouldn't be grateful to one another. Of course that makes the world much nicer. But there are a great many reasons why it isn't going to happen, and the OP needs to cope with that if she is going to volunteer in a place that needs her to be non-judgemental. If she just ends up getting huffy because people don't thank her or act entitled, then it won't be helping anyone, which is presumably one of the reasons she wanted to volunteer. People are explaining how it could work so that she understand the reasons for some of the unpleasant behaviours, doesn't get as disappointed by them, the foodbanks can continue to run and people will donate and the service users might feel less judged.

Volunteers can of course express negative opinions, but there is an appropriate place to do that, and gossiping about clients, cherry picking instances that lead to negative stereotypes on a public forum is not that place.
Yes, food banks need volunteers, but they need the right volunteers who represent the charity appropriately. If people who could potentially harm the work of a charity with their attitudes are put off volunteering by my post, then I consider that a positive outcome. Charities exist for their beneficiaries, not to give anyone who fancies feeling good about themselves a means to do so.
While the vast majority of volunteers are fantastic and make a huge positive difference, managing inappropriate volunteer behaviour and/or the danage caused by volunteer indiscretion on social media can impose a significant strain on the already stretched capacity of charities. So people who can't control their frustration will be doing more for the charity by opting out.

@VeronicaFranklin
I'd say ''If you want a specific item, you'll have to buy it yourself''.

The fussiness is nothing new...my neighbour used to go to the older person's group pre pandemic, and people were moaning and pulling faces even than about what the food bank had given them.

It is a scary world when people advocate censorship.

I used to work in a food bank and we made sure that evryone got a mix of branded and unbranded stuff and told people so. If they say, 'She got fairy liquid' I'd whisper 'yeah but she got value beans and you got Heinz. We mix it up so it is fair.'

Trty to bear in mind that people using foodbanks can feel very humiliated by the experience and are trying to claw back some control by being choosy.

I do think visible information pointing out you are volunteers and that products are donated and brands will vary are a good idea. Maybe a box by door to re donate if an item is unsuitable and will be wasted - so you can point at box and say please feel free to donate anything you won’t use.

Why does she need to be “non-judgemental” about service users who complain to her about the donations? Perhaps if they feel judged by her for it they will take their opinions elsewhere.

I think this can be a dangerous attitude, though, because it starts to imply that volunteers can't be criticised, even if they are showing judgemental or unhelpful attitudes or behaviours, because there wouldn't be anyone if they stopped.

It's the same view that stops people criticising the NHS or whatever - the idea that we'd have nothing otherwise. In both cases, sometimes constructive criticism can result in people looking at attitudes and processes, and working so that the alternative to the current situation isn't "nothing", but actually a system that works better. I think the fear of having "nothing", in whatever situation, can mean that very genuinely helpful changes are never made.

If people could look more broadly at what suggestions there are for improving things, rather than seeing criticism always as people being rude or horrible (acknowledging that sometimes it is just that, of course), then there might be some good changes possible.

It's not just an anonymous forum that the OP is having a harmless whinge on - it's a very public post that is affecting the attitudes of others, either decreasing likelihood to donate ,or increasing the perception that large numbers of people are entitled frauds, and that isn't just a harmless expression of frustration. It's not asking for perfect volunteers only, but for those volunteers to find ways of dealing with the very-human frustration that they will feel, in less harmful ways.

People using food banks can still have food likes and dislikes. Maybe they just want the branded and nicer stuff and aren't being grateful. But as pps have said, it's very hard mentally to go to a food bank and people who make these comments may be are triggered by even being there.

I definitely think some posters would be good. One to say that the food is donations, you give the best products you can and there will always be a mix of branded and unbranded.

Think I ould just say that, " it's not a supermarket. It's all donations from people. If you're not keen on the cheap washing up liquid, then we could remove it and give to someone else?"

Haven’t RTFT, sorry.

The ideas of posters should work, but also MrsTerryPratchet idea sounds the best.

They can feel their feelings. Business need to start calling out customers and service users

So you are saying that if volunteers don't have what you deem to be the right attitude it is better to have no volunteers? Anyone would think you were doing volunteers some sort of favour by letting them work for your charity when actually it's the other way around. Charities may exist for their beneficiaries but without volunteers they won't exist.

I’m not as nice as you. I would say;

”Ok, so you don’t want it then?”

I hope you’re joking?