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.

Zeppo you'd have to conatct your local bank. We all have diffeerent gluts and shortages at different times of the year.

We currently have no more need of baked bean, pasta or chocolate. So we are passiing them around other banks and swapping for tinned meat and veg, which we are oddly short of!

@Zeppo our local food bank has a Facebook page which you can link to and you’ll find that any shortage may be published on there, alternatively you can message via that to find out

I'm part of a charitable group that supports a local food bank. They give out emergency food bags which contain 3 days worth of food, including breakfast products. They give one bag per person over 13 and 1/2 bag for children under 13 so a family (rightly) gets a decent amount. They also provide kettle only bags for people with limited facilities and no cook bags for homeless people. They also provide clothing and household items for those that need it. The manager told us about a teen boy that was thrilled to be given his own branded deodorant and shower gel so I always take a few 'luxury' items with that in mind.

The whole point of the voucher system is that volunteers don't have to make decisions about desperate people who have had their quota...the professionals who know them and can engage them in help make the decisions. Yes, in some cases they will phone up and ask if it is ok to issue another voucher if they think it necessary. But equally, if they notice that someone is on their 5th because they're using their maiden name or whatever they'll tell the office so we can talk to the professionals involved and put a stop on any more being issued.

It is a hard balance. But in order to preserve limited food stocks there has to be some control.

Thanks @foslady

@hobbesmanc. - you are so kind! You won't believe the smile on our faces when there's some chocolate or some nice biscuits or coco pops! It feels hard not being able to buy them much of this stuff so when we get some from the foodbank - the children love it and I love their smiles!

If Universal Credit wasn't so damned hard to access there would be less need of Foodbanks!