AIBU to say that most people have no idea about Food Banks?

[UndertheCedartree]

I wrote a post a while ago about how I was struggling on my income (and I got loads of great support which really helped). I said on the post that I got 7 items a week from the Food Bank. A few people didn't understand how I could struggle with getting help from the Food Bank. I was just thinking probably most people have never been in a Food Bank or relied on one.

So to give an idea 7 items could be: 2 toilet rolls, a small bag of washing powder, a box of cereal, a carton of longlife milk, 4 tins of tomatoes, a tin of baked beans and a bag of pasta.

Or it could be: a bottle of washing up liquid, 4 sachets of microwave porridge, a carton of juice, 4 packets of crisps, 4 tins of kidney beans, a tin of peaches, a tin of custard.

Could most people honestly say they wouldn't struggle to make meals for a week with that? Don't get me wrong I am extremely grateful for the help. But it doesn't solve all your grocery problems as some people seemed to believe.

@Cafelatte2go

Don’t live in your area but every mid range supermarket, e.g Tesco, ASDA, Sainsbury’s and Co-op in our area have trollies at the check outs for you to put in your donated goods.
Local shopping complexes will have seasonal collections, we are getting a delivery of donated Easter Eggs to our centre for the children this week for example. The Trussell Trust mentioned above has a website with many donation options listed including donating online. Ocado has a donation scheme apparently when you order online( I’m not in an Ocado area so don’t know the details) some food banks in our local area have put out appeals on Social Media when they are running low on stocks. Some food banks will take direct donations find a local one and pop along.
If you want to help and don’t have the funds. Google local food banks in your area and volunteer your time.
If there aren’t any collection points in your area, how about getting together in your community and starting one. Or collecting donations cooking dinners once a week/month in your local community centre and having open house for a free meal for local families, Simple food like soup, shepherds pie with veg and a fruit crumble Everybody eats free, a real mix of people from those who are socially isolated, older, or could really do with a free hot meal.
This happens once a week in my local community.
You could help families in so many ways.

May I ask where and how you donate things to the foodbanks please?

Where I live, all the Churches collect for the foodbanks. Also all the supermarkets have collection points. Various other shops and community centres etc have donation points too.

If you put Trussel Trust into Facebook or Yourtown food bank it will show you if you have a local one

www.trusselltrust.org/ Has avfind your local food bank, alternatively contact your local Salvation Army who may also collect or be able to advise

I spent a day packing Xmas food parcels at our local food bank. For a one parent one child household, the contents were, one can baby potatoes, one can chicken in white sauce, a tin of peas, a tiny Xmas pudding, a carton of custard, a packet of biscuits, a small bar of chocolate, a tin of peaches, a carton of milk, a bag of porridge. Everything had to be cookable in a microwave.
If that was someone’s Xmas lunch, I felt so sorry for the child. While the supervisor wasn’t looking, we sneaked in extra packs of smarties and chocolate reindeer, despite being told, that was too much chocolate!

This really isn’t a criticism, just a question. How can people afford mobiles and internet but need this? This isn’t me being horrid, I give a lot to charity, I’m genuinely asking?

Alice can only speak for myself. My mobile is PAYG and I had no credit for about 3 months. Paid for my internet out of my child benefit (spent the rest on food and electric).
Broadband is not considered a luxury nowadays, by the way, in fact you are expected to be online in order to apply for jobs. You also need a phone for interviews.

It’s odd about broadband. I don’t have it and I have a full time career. When I’ve been unemployed, I’ve used public library PCs to go online.
I think it’s age rather than real need. Being older, I grew up without broadband so I don’t see it as essential.
However ds will be a teenager soon so I might not be able to get away with it for much longer.

I am older and didnt grow up with internet at home.

I think it is needed. Especially as kids get older.

Also it makes applying for jobs easier, than going to the local library everyday to check emails. That's if you have a local library.

By having internet at home, you can respond to emails from potential employers far faster.

And what if your kid is sick and you cant get to the library for a few days? Or you are ill?

My cousin was a food blogger and was one of a group of food bloggers who were issued a challenge. They would be given a food bank hamper and had to live for a week ONLY on the contents of the hamper. That's all they could eat, for a week. Then they had to blog about it. She said she got quite a bit of food, but she did say that they took down her income details and that families are only allowed about 4 hampers a year, so they have to make things last. The general idea is that the hamper is a place to START. It isn't meant to be all you have to eat.

Our grocery stores have a really neat idea. They prepack bags for the food bank with commonly needed items. The items are put in a plastic or paper bag and then the price of the bag is put on the front. There are bags for different sizes ($5, $10, which is about £3, £5). You purchase a bag and then leave it at the store and they'll donate it.

Our local Tesco’s does events where they list what is needed at the food bank and have all their cheaper items as you walk through door next to the list , I will try to do one full load when I can afford it / pay forward overtime ... but only banged it a couple of times harder noe have a baby andredurd I come ... but will be if it from nappies he grows out of etc ... I hope I never need a food bank but butbin this unknown financial climate who knows x

Re mobile and broadband - our local primary schools are cashless and paperless. So it's almost impossible to manage without the tech.

Also UC claimants and job applicants. Being on a very tight budget can mean needing instant access to online accounts or loan.

In some SW situations, the client is required to be immediately contactable, or be described as non-compliant.

IMO, being in need if a food bank would mean a greater need for mobile and broadband, not less.

I've been asked why I have a mobile when I had to use a food bank about 2 years ago. My mobile cost £40 and it's £10 a month pay as you go. I didn't have broadband at the time. The jobcentre expect you to be able to use the internet to apply for jobs, they've taken the computers out of the jobcentres, you can't use the phone there any more either. My library charges for internet use. The local paper just gives a link to a website to apply for jobs now. If it's between putting credit on your phone so you can apply for work (the jobcentre want you to spend 35 hours a week looking and prove it or you can be sanctioned) and buying food, then that's why people have phones but need to use a food bank.

I’ve got my dads old Motorola on a £7 a month contract. 9 year old laptop (I do have internet at home but If I’m somewhere with bad WiFi I tether my phone to my laptop and it works well)
By contrast an adult return to the library is £5 and half the time all the computers are full.

I think actually the poorer you are the more expensive stuff you need...eg if I ever need something photocopied/scanned I just ask DH to do it at work, I don’t need to make a special trip to the library.
I can also understand why people get good sky/virgin packages....because then their teenagers are safe indoors playing video games or watching movies (I used to live in Croydon, I wouldn’t have liked DS hanging around the town centre in the evenings after dark when he was older) By contrast the ‘safe’ things that teens enjoy like trampoline park, cinema, Starbucks would cost a lot more.

Sorry I’ve veered off a bit. It must be so hard feeding DC from a food bank parcel, most of the plain stuff seems fine but I imagine a lot of small DC turning their noses up at tinned meat/fish (and then their mums making them something else and having one less ingredient for meals) :(

Please bear in mind that food bank users are not always who you think they are. Often they are the working poor. Eg a family with two parents with low wage jobs who need a car to get to work and the car has broken down. In that case the choice is often between repairing the car and continuing to have a job, or eating.

You can also make regular cash donations to food banks (I pay a direct debit to Trussell). I do pop items into the boxes sometimes, but I decided it was probably more effective to give money and then hopefully it would go more where needed and get what was needed rather than adding to, say, a mountain of baked beans when actually tinned meat might be more helpful.

This really isn’t a criticism, just a question. How can people afford mobiles and internet but need this? This isn’t me being horrid, I give a lot to charity, I’m genuinely asking?

I haven't ever had to use a food bank but just to say...my mobile handset cost £50 and I pay less than £6 a month for my sim card. £6 a month would make absolutely no difference to a family's food shopping budget.

I spend £300-400 a month on food for a family of four. £15 on WiFi wouldn't make much of a dent.

Has the Trussel Trust changed its condescending views on sugar and treats then?

A year or so ago our local one was saying they did not want donations of sugar or treats. They rightly got a lot of criticism. Apparently if you are poor you can't have sugar in your tea or treats. They also said they didn't want chocolate advent calendars (though then backtracked and said it was only because they'd been overwhelmed).

To go back to the OP, that does sound like very few items. Is this because they think you less poor than other users of the service or is this what everyone gets in your area? Perhaps they just don't have that many donations so they can only provide a very basic service?

To those asking where you donate - you can donate in some supermarkets, there are collection points and you can also donate money online.

I think actually the poorer you are the more expensive stuff you need

Yes and you need internet access to look for jobs if you are out of work. Not everyone has a library nearby, or one that is open a decent number of hours.

I think people are not reading OP's updates. She gets her 3 referrals over 6 months when she gets a proper hamper of food to last several days. The bags of 7 items are on top of this and I do not think many food banks do them.Foodbanks were designed for help in a sudden financial crisis, hence the referral system, but so few people resolve their finances in a few weeks and people end up needing weekly help.

I listed the package we give above - one of the larger ones.

Our official policy is 3 visits, but we are a church run group, and tend to give many more times than that. So, for example, if there is an issue with someone waiting for a UC claim to start, we would happily give weekly until it did. Ditto, people in refuges, we will support until their benefits kick in. Generally, if we see the same person 6 or 8 times, we'd contact their referral agency to discuss and get an update. If needed, we would keep giving food parcels.

Food banks are there for emergency support, usually in an interim period where people are seeking the correct help and benefits, not to give a food package so that people don't need to spend their benefits on food.

Anyone in the UK who has had help to claim their correct benefits and has taken debt advice etc has money available for an adequate diet once their claim is sorted. That's why people need to be referred - we are an interim step, but their referral agency is working with them to provide a long term solution - food banks are not a long term solution.

We do, of course, give small bags of food to people in desperate need who walk in without a referral, because we are human beings and wouldn't turn away someone who was hungry. However, we'd only give them a day or so's worth of basics, along with details of who they could contact to get a referral and some long term help.

Food banks are there for emergency support, usually in an interim period where people are seeking the correct help and benefits, not to give a food package so that people don't need to spend their benefits on food

^This. It is much better IMO to give a hamper sort of thing that lasts for 3 full days meals every few months than 7 items a week. A local community initiative does an 'honesty food bank'; where donated food from the public and shops is left on shelves and people come and take what they want on a weekly basis. It's mostly bread, pastries, pasta and dried food stuffs but now and then fresh fruit and vegetables. They are thinking to rework it though as it is encouraging dependency rather than responsibility.

I think actually the poorer you are the more expensive stuff you need

And I would add, the poorer you are, the less able you are to access cheap deals. One mum I’m supporting has key cards for her gas and electric. I’m shocked at how quickly it runs out. The CAB has an ongoing campaign to bring the prices down to the same levels as for people who pay by direct debit, but I doubt the energy companies want to get rid of that little cash cow.

Alicewond
So many libraries have closed or no longer have pcs. Or they are no longer free to use.

Internet is needed to claim UC and to do anything related to your claim.
Without the Internet you have no money at all.
You may not see the need but it is absolutely essential.

Seniorschoolmum,
If you are working and have to claim UC then Internet is absolutely essential, it's not an age thing. The government has made it this way. More and more services are becoming online only.

Also to get the cheapest rates on most things, it is online only. Another way to penalise the poor or those who don't know.