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?

"Seriously, does there come a time when food bank recipients say, "look, thanks for the offer, but I can't stand anymore baked beans, pasta or Angel Delight".
They are free to pay for the food they want themselves then

Thing is, nobody has actually said that they should put up with any amount of abuse without complaint. Many people have agreed that there are times when volunteers will naturally end up feeling annoyed or judgemental, and that they need appropriate places to discuss these feelings with other volunteers, or privately with family and friends, etc, rather than on a public forum where the effect has been to tarnish a group who already have a stereotype about them . People have suggested that giving volunteers effective training, and suggesting alternative perspectives of things that might help OP realise what is going on, which can both potentially lead to less annoyance in the first place, and possibly lead to her seeking out better training (even online) to work on how to deal with clients and with her feelings towards them in a more effective way. If a volunteer doesn't want to do any of that, not even consider those viewpoints or consider some training, then perhaps they aren't the right person for that particular position - which isn't to say that there aren't many other aspects of the position that they could do. Not everyone is cut out to work with difficult clients by any means, and it isn't a slight against them for that. The organisation would likely be appreciative of any roles that the volunteer could do. Volunteers don't usually have a negative stereotype about them in the first place, so remarks about people not always being right for the job are not damaging in the same way as remarks that can increase stigmatism against a group already vulnerable to it. If people could move away from the idea of negative feedback as just being "having a go at someone" or "giving them a hard time", and consider whether some of what's been said maybe could be taken on board, even if someone doesn't agree with all of it, then some changes might be possible. But immediately dismissing it all as people being sanctimonious or just giving her a hard time, means nothing will change.

I donated to our local food bank yesterday because this thread reminded me that I had not done so for a bit. If people want to misinterpret what the OP was saying and use this thread as an excuse not to donate, that’s on them, not her.

Most are perfectly capable of understanding that all people in need of support are, like the whole world, a mixture of appreciative, indifferent, aggressive and unpleasant depending on character and circumstances. And also realise that this doesn’t stop them being in need of support.

In an ideal world, all the volunteers would be saint like with perfect understanding of the impacts of poverty, mental health and complete insight into the human condition. However, in a perfect world there’d be no food banks.

I work as an adviser/ supervisor so have lots of contact with people needing food banks, volunteers and advisers. There are thousands of anxious, financially insecure people out there needing help. They are not always nice people. They have been dealt a shitty hand, poor housing, low income, food poverty, debt and ill health sometimes all of the above or a combination. Yes I have been called names, told to go forth and multiply, been shouted at because I can't arrange a delivery. Some poor people are massive dicks, does not stop them needing help. If we turned away every client that effed and jeffed or moaned that they got spam again in their food parcel we would have far fewer clients.

We also deal daily with people who have been abused, who are suicidal, haven't eaten properly for days, who owe money to violent loan sharks, whose home is damp and unheated, whose benefits are cut because they didn't attend a JC meeting they didn't know about because their phone is not working or they can't read the messages. The same people that swear and try to keep a modicum of control in their life by rejecting the spam and not doffing their caps at the food bank workers.

I do reserve the right to moan with my colleagues who understand about our clients you develop a resilience and a sense of humour to retain a healthy distance - but the upsetting clients are not the sweaty / entitled ones but the ones with no hope or fight left.

If people wanted to counter the potential negative effect on a public forum it would be better to say that very few food bank recipients have that attitude in their experience, rather than telling OP off for publicising the fact that some service users are very unreasonable. You are not doing anything to mitigate what you see as a potential negative impact on food banks by informing OP she needs to give up more of her free time to train to deal with abusive people and/or she's not the right person for the job. Quite the opposite.

@PizzaFunghi your experience within the voluntary sector comes across as being quite different to the OP's. You talk repeatedly of training online or in person. The OP has referred to working in a community food bank, which by the sounds of it is a grass roots organisation set up to fill a gap where the likes of the Trussell Trust don't reach. Many of the grassroots organisations don't have the framework of support for volunteers that you refer to. These grassroots organisations fill a gap.
I live in a town with a population of 80,000 people. Our nearest Trussell Trust is 9 miles away, that's a long journey. I'm grateful to the volunteers within my community that decided to set up a food bank to help those people within our community. They don't have a framework of experience before them so they are learning as they go.
There are ups and downs with volunteering and this can impact on your mental health and wellbeing. IIRC the OP started the thread late at night so possibly with no one else around to talk it through with, but it was obviously on their mind. Sometimes you just want to get something off your chest and I see no more harm in posting on an anonymous forum than talking it through with friends and family as you suggest. In fact I actually think it's preferable to post here because you are distancing yourself from the place you volunteer at.

Blimey your language is extreme. I have no idea how from reading the OP's posts you have managed to suggest that the OP is being a martyr, poisoning minds or demonising others.

I merely read it as someone who had something on their mind before they went to bed and was having a bit of a grumble whilst looking for advice.

If she doesn't like the attitude of the people she is serving, if she feels they're not grateful enough, then there's nothing stopping her from staying home.

This is such a wilful misunderstanding. OP doesn't expect gratitude, she just also doesn't expect massive complaints or even verbal abuse. There's a whole middle ground of neutral between the 2 where most people happily fall.

encouraging volunteers to stop helping seems very strange

To summarize my view,

(1) I don't think that being poor or under stress is an excuse for rudeness toward people who are serving you.

(2) I also don't think that being poor or in need of assistance means that you have to be more humble and submissive than anyone else, to prove your gratitude.

Same rules for everyone, IMO.

There are some very unpleasant attitudes on this thread: calling people 'ingrates' when we have a 'generous welfare system' (we don't, or there would be far less need for food banks); accusing poor people of 'whining and expecting handouts' instead of looking after their families; etc. But it isn't the OP who has made these comments, and she should not be accused of attitudes that she has never expressed.

Agreed!

What a thread. 😬

I volunteer in a foodbank and have never come across anything like the OP describes. 😕

But if I did, I'd give myself a quick mental reminder about how lucky I am to be on the side of the table I am and try to show I understand they feel disappointed by the lack of Fairy. 😊

Until you experience what someone else has , perhaps you could avoid assuming your response will be different

Some of us have, so can judge all we like.

So do you think the OP is right to be upset that people are rude and angry to her about what is available?

I don't think anyone ever has the right to be rude and angry at a person who has no control or responsibility for the thing being complained about

Eat The Rich!

Today I learned that it's OK to be rude to service staff as long as you're poor.

Today I learned some have poor comprehension.

I don't get why people can possibly think its ok to be verbally abusive to anyone, let alone someone giving up their time to help ensure them and their family don't 'so say' starve.

I'm tired of reading the excuses on here for awful behaviour. No one expects a service user so exclaim that they shall ever be in the OPs debt, hell even a bit of gratitude isn't expected, just some common decency.

But it isn't the OP who has made these comments, and she should not be accused of attitudes that she has never expressed.

Exactly, Thank you!

I don't think anyone okay with verbal abuse, or making excuses.

When someone treats you badly and you don't feel you deserved it, people need to find ways to mentally cope with that, which protect our own self-image as being undeserving of that abuse. (Of course, nobody deserves verbal abuse, but it's just a natural reaction to self-protect.) For some people, the way their minds do that is by thinking "they probably did that because they're a rude, entitled, selfish person", while for other people the thought that comes up is "they probably did that because they've had a difficult past and had a bad day". Neither of those is an excuse, just a plausible reason that we use to reassure ourselves that we did nothing wrong.

I am entitled to tell other people what to do. They are entitled to ignore me. And vice versa.

I don't understand, genuinely, why you are in such a stew about me having a view you disagree with.

As for my character traits, you know absolutely nothing about me. You have no idea what I do, what my experiences are, whether I am kind to people in RL or not. You are entitled to think what you like, of course.

@5128gap

Thank you @5128gap that's a very helpful distinction between 'who provides what' to volunteers very eloquently described.

Now that @VeronicaFranklin has seen the appalling direction her thread has taken and wishes to distance herself from the right wing knee jerkery, maybe she could petition MN to take it down?

She's had her little vent, after all.