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?

Sigh. You don't really understand the concept of ethics, do you?

Very well said, I wonder if the crass poster has actually ever asked herself why 80 per cent of 'homeless junkies' are exactly that, drug dependent and homeless.

Some background information would break your heart if one ever took the time to look further than the wretched individuals you are referring to.

And do bear in mind that having the indignity of actually resorting to using food banks and giving up your home could well lead to huge mental health issues leading into addiction and the final rock bottom that sanctimonious poster so obviously despises. There but for fortune and all that.😡

It pisses me off that people on here think service users are allowed to be arseholes and should be given understanding and empathy but the volunteers have to be perfect saints, not even allowed to vent anonymously - where's the empathy and understanding for them and what they are doing?

This

But also won’t stop me donating.

I get that people want to retain a bit of control and dignity. I get that someone might have been banking on a certain item that their children like, ie with the different cereals.

There are also alot of frustrations surrounding why someone might have to use a foodback, and the fact they weren’t once commonplace.

However, they are also adults and should be aware that volunteers are just that, and that donations are donations, not taxes. It’s not the place to take out your frustrations. I’d have more sympathy with someone obviously overwhelmed that someone being petty and aggressive. Brand names after all don’t mean much

@LongLivedQueen You do not understand how charities operate and many do indeed have ethical statements and written down requirements of staff and volunteers.
That also includes not being patronising.

There have been loads of threads on Mumsnet over the years on difficult behaviour from people using a service when you are a volunteer and how to handle. Being on the PTA and people whose kids get the benefits, won’t help out but moan about the choice of events. Parents of Brownies/Cubs who complain sharply about who is in what pack. Participants at Parkrun who have a go at organisers around levels of mud.

I think there has been lots of useful pieces on this thread (amongst some sanctimony) that may help the OP or others reframing the user behaviour in this context. I’ve done various pieces of work with food banks and homelessness charities and I have found the commentary on the thread helpful and make me think again about some of the people I came across and how they behaved and why.

However at the end of the day if any volunteering has become unenjoyable then I think it is perfectly fine to decide it isn’t for you any more.

We all know that these are challenging times but as I say, some empathy towards those people actually doing something more useful than lecturing on piety on an internet forum might be in order

Good luck with that, AchatAVendre; these threads usually go the same way, and while I've never yet known a volunteer who expects a medal, IME most would rather not be derided either

I'd also suggest there's a bigger picture around the worst attitudes - the age old question of whether the behaviour's because they're disadvantaged or they're disadvantaged because of their behaviour

Clearly foodbanks are hardly the venue for addressing this thorny issue, but I'm not sure either that it helps to go on ignoring it in the hope it'll just go away if we offer a bit more sympathy, a bit more money, a bit more free food, etc, etc.

Wow so this thread went off overnight...

It's interesting to see the varied and differing opinions on this. It has really divided people.

I wrote my post not to be 'goady' but I guess just to vent my frustration anonymously - isn't that what most posts on MN are, right?

I have newborn baby who I leave with family while I volunteer at the food bank which is run entirely on skeleton volunteers and has been for some time, so ultimately it would close if people didn't volunteer. So I guess it just pushed me a bit over the edge this week to deal with what I perceived as ungratefulness but that could have just been people struggling to come to terms with having to use a food bank.

It isn't government run or council funded but community run. We don't ask for proof of benefits or referrals from GPs like some food banks, we just trust that those accessing it, are genuinely in need and therefore it is sometimes hard to not get frustrated when people seem ungrateful or complain rudely (it's a regular occurrence not a one off), but I accept that people may behave this way due to feeling ashamed or as someone pointed out, it's a hard pill to swallow if you suddenly find yourself in reduced circumstances and are used to certain brands/items that you then cannot afford. So perhaps, I'm too quick to take their behaviour personally and that is something I will work on.

I feel a sense of responsibility towards the service users and should probably have pointed out that many of them are grateful for any help they get. It's nice to sit and have a cuppa with them and many have given me invaluable advice especially with being a new first time mum!

I certainly do not judge them for using the food bank as it has been suggested.

I have had to access similar services many years ago when I was made redundant, couldn't afford my mortgage and ultimately lost my home.

There was very little help back then, certainly not to the level there is now, it was a very sobering time which ultimately changed my view on the world but any help I could access, I remember being very grateful for. I've had to rely on the kindness of strangers, so I that is in part why I volunteer. Not because I want thanks, because I've been there, I know how hopeless and horrible it is.

I don't know perhaps I'm naive in thinking that everyone will appreciate and be grateful for any help they get based on my own experience.

We do try accommodate people's preferred requests i.e. brands/ certain flavours etc when we can and we obviously provide options for those with special dietary requirements. As much as we'd like to we just don't have enough of everything to give people choice.

I certainly don't expect service users to thank me or believe myself to be some sort of angel for volunteering as it's been suggested. It's sad to see someone label me as an 'unkind volunteer' when surely the bases of any voluntary work is kindness and a hope that you can help people in lesser circumstances than yourself. Voluntary work for most part it is a thankless task, if we did it for thanks we'd have packed it in a long time ago!

My husband and I used to use a food bank - no, what we got was not always exactly to my taste, but you could choose to a certain extent. I would never have dreamed of complaining, but plenty of people did, and very aggressively. I understand you OP. It's not about 'doffing your cap' ffs.

I'm now in a far better financial position and I donate both money and food to the same food bank that helped us. I do always only donate food that I would also be happy to eat myself, but that doesn't have to be branded!

Just because you are giving your time for free does not mean you can do whatever you want

I agree completely, though I'd add that neither does being in a position where you're using a foodbank

Don't judge others by your own standards.

Oh I don’t know about that. I’m quite interested.

I don't know perhaps I'm naive in thinking that everyone will appreciate and be grateful for any help they get based on my own experience. I think this is an unreasonable expectation. You should do it because you want to do it, not to get appreciation.

What % of people are ungrateful @VeronicaFranklin ?

You say you didn't want to be goady, but you might want to reflect on why you chose to start a thread about the negatives rather than the positives of your food bank volunteering, whilst demanding positivity from your food bank users.

Its not a matter of whether I personally like their opinion or not. Its a matter of whether their opinion aligns with the values of the charity. I don't think volunteers should feel honoured to work for a charity, but nor do I feel the charity is so honoured by their contribution that they can say and do as they please.

Don't be ridiculous.

I agree. Is OP not allowed to vent?! Bizarre attitudes

TLDR; if you need to use a food bank you can be as rude as you like. And volunteers need to suck it up

Oh good grief.

The OP wasn't goady. She merely said she was disappointed, and I get it.

30 years ago I would have used a food bank if one had been available. It wasn't so we went hungry. If it had been I'd have been grateful and I wouldn't have acted like an arse if I was given own brand stuff instead of branded.

Some of the posts on this thread are ridiculous.

I realise they'd attempt to help me within the restrictions of my medical dietary needs, It's more that having to ask them for that kind of special treatment on top of the fact I'm asking for donated food would make me feel even more stressed about the whole thing, and make it even harder to cope with if I was given foods I had a strong aversion to.

When you have particular dietary needs and are somewhere that food is provided, there's often an understandable unspoken expectation that while other people are enjoying selecting what they'd like, you will be extra-grateful for the single safe option you're offered, because people have gone to a special effort for you (and it is genuinely appreciated). It's very stressful if it then turns out to be something that due to my ASD-related difficulties will be very hard for me to eat, because I still have to be polite and nice about it. If a food bank gave me a lump of cheddar I simply wouldn't physically be able to eat it, but after all the effort they'd gone to in catering for my medical needs, it would be difficult to know how to politely refuse it without coming across as Fairy Woman.

I guess I just feel for people who may already be quite stressed out, for whom everything has changed and nothing is certain, and who can't even have the comfort of familiar food (and cleaning products) that they know they like. I know it's trivial compared to not being able to eat at all.

the people in these situations might not be in the position to "learn" anything by being turned away from the foodbank, though. There are usually reasons that people are not behaving in a pleasant way. That doesn't make it acceptable, but it also doesn't mean that they can immediately change their behaviour, for whatever reason. It's a lot more complicated than that. So I think charities who are trying to help do have to find ways to meet people where they are, without judging the person as undeserving, and to accept that at that moment, the person can't see how to do things differently. Just saying that they "shouldn't" be like that isn't going to change things.

The talk about judging people isn't accusing anyone of judging them for using foodbanks, but for not responding the way someone thinks they should, not being grateful enough, not living their life the way you think they should, not making the better choices that you think they should make, etc. It's the judging of people into those deserving of help and those not.

I think charities do need to give volunteers some training in how to deal most effectively with their clients, if they want to achieve their aims of helping people. There are other jobs that can be done by those who don't or can't deal with it in the way the charity wants - lots of admin, organising, etc jobs that aren't client facing in the same way would still be very helpful, and the volunteer can still feel that they are doing good by volunteering.

This!

@VeronicaFranklin OP you are really not getting it. I’ve just read your update and five times you mention grateful/ungrateful. Why the hell do you think poor people should be grateful to be given food?

OP seems to see herself as a lady bountiful helping the poor people who should be suitably thankful and grateful to her.

I imagine you would think anything I say, or anyone for that matter, is unreasonable.

OP isn't working for a charity. And charities have standards of behaviour not ethics. Ethics are individual and can't be controlled by others.

I get where you are coming from but I think the poster is entitled to have a non identifying moan, she's getting some helpful ideas (kindness posters) and whilst I agree some of those behaving badly will be very vulnerable, some will as another poster pointed out just being selfish dicks. Empathy and compassion goes both ways and volunteers stop volunteering when they have to put up with too much crap