I've NC'd for this.
I run a food bank. We pack food parcels and deliver them (to many, many people) but also ask people who are able to, to collect from us. The model we have is that people come in during one morning a week, and we go along our shelves and ask them if they'd like... whatever item. We buy in a few items (we're grant funded) but most of what we have is supermarket excess, esp fresh produce and dairy. So someone saying yes to everything would get beans, tinned toms, pasta, rice, oats and (this week) toothpaste, 6-7 different types of fruit and veg, oat milk, mince.
We're in a deprived part of town and serve people from this postcode and the neighbouring one (where there isn't other provision), as well as people who are from further afield but where we're really the nearest realistic option. Most of the people we serve are very local.
We ask people to pay £2 towards their shop if they can. This is voluntary.
Our premises is quite small, and I worry about ventilation as the weather turns.
At the moment a queue starts to form outside several hours before (our commercial neighbours grumble a bit but broadly are sympathetic). Most people are probably queuing for 45m to an hour to get in. We don't really have seating - certainly not for everyone, but even for more than 2-3 people. It's just too cramped and crowded.
We serve a person every two minutes from the moment we open our doors to when we close.
We have enough for everyone, so arriving early doesn't give an advantage in terms of what's on offer.
We have children's books and toys on offer if people are coming along with their little ones.
I can't really ask my incredibly dedicated volunteers to stay longer / come in another day, they're already giving up so much of their time.
We don't really have capacity to do more deliveries, because that also relies on volunteers.
I wonder about some sort of ticketing system, but then I think we'll still have people hanging around waiting for their number to be called.
We at some point tried to let people help themselves to one of each item and it was an unmitigated disaster - some people were just tipping whole containers of things into their wheely bags.
I'm not happy with the experience we're offering, basically. The whole point of our kind of setup is that there is dignity in people choosing what they'd like for themselves. But if you have to queue for an hour and occasionally get into a bunfight with a queue jumper (it's been known to happen) a lot of that dignity vanishes.
How would you do it, if you were me? Yes I have trustees etc to speak to but I'm interested in others' opinions.