Southwark food bank will be closed on Monday the 19th

[pinkbear95]

Now don’t get me wrong, I understand the Queen of the country has died. I understand it’ll be a bank holiday and a lot of businesses are making the decision to close out of respect for Her.

However, how is it anywhere near reasonable to close a food bank on Monday?! I’m not sure if it’s just Southwark or many others but I genuinely think that is inhumane and abhorrent. The Queen never went hungry a day in her life. During the cost of living crisis, a food bank has decided to shut. Surely not?!

It certainly feels uncomfortable to think of food banks closing, although I appreciate there are probably practical reasons to do so.

I think the bigger issue is whether a bank holiday was ever needed at all. Children and staff could watch the funeral at school, shops could perhaps close their doors for an hour or two, call centres could switch their phones off for the duration etc. Everybody has a smart phone nowadays so it's not like it has to be missed...why can't there just be a general understanding that not a lot of work will be done for an hour or two and then the country starts up again?

A quick google and I see some food banks close for Bank holidays, and/or polling days. Seems reasonable, and they have given notice so people can plan ahead.

Yes thank you, this is the issue.

I’m not great at explaining myself so thank you for saying what was in my head😂 I think the wording of the tweet wasn’t great as they could pay their respects in other ways such as maybe having a minute silent.

The issue isn’t that they’ll be closed for the day as they close on the weekends and other bank holidays. It was the wording of the announcement which made me think ‘😕’

There are many times throughout the year that foodbanks have to close for various reasons, and this time it is to allow those who volunteer to either watched the funeral service or take care of childcare as schools will be closed. Rather than get angry at the OP, I hope many people who have read this post will consider volunteering themselves, or at least contributing to the deposit areas of their local supermarket. It is terrible that we even need to rely on foodbanks, they are there because the system is already failing for so many people.

Not going to a shop or food bank for one day doesn't mean the family goes hungry.

So, as the funeral is at 11, they could have opened in the afternoon.
I doubt very much that all the volunteers are ardent royalists.

"I doubt very much that all the volunteers are ardent royalists."

No but as said, many of those people will have caring responsibilities, or like myself, will have to provide childcare. In many cases it would have been the venue unable to be opened etc as well. I volunteer and when we signed up it was asked what hours we could do, so just opening in the afternoon and then staying late, isn't an option. The small pool of volunteers are spread very thinly these days.

Oh fgs, they were hardly going to tweet that they will be closed because Mary's twins creche is closed and Marjory has to look after her blind aged mother, are they?
Who cares what they tweeted?

👏👏👏👏👏👏

Thank you for providing this insight. It provides a much clearer image of the person behind the "volunteer" which I think is possibly being missed by the OP.

Definitely.

I work with a lot of charities and there are always many fewer people working in the school holidays. That probably happens to some extent in every sector, but it seems like a particularly big deal in the third sector because so many people are either volunteers or, if they're paid workers, they're still very often people with responsibility for children. In my experience they're often on part time contracts for funding reasons, and of course we all know that people with caring responsibilities are disproportionately found in part time, less well paid work. I don't mean the CEOs and accountants necessarily, but caseworkers and people doing the more 'on the ground' stuff.

So it doesn't surprise me at all that charities who are reliant on this cohort of people to do their work, paid or otherwise, might have to withdraw their services on a short notice bank holiday. It's an exaggerated version of what happens over summer etc.

I'd volunteer so they could stay open, I do not feel the need to watch her funeral I can watch it on playback for all I care.

Of course it is. The Head of State has DIED. This is a huge historical moment. Of national and international importance. Doesn't matter what your thoughts are about a monarchy. This is a big thing.

More important than William getting married for sure. But we still got a BH for that.

I agree with you OP.

I wonder how many people could be fed and homes heated with the money used to buy all the floral tributes and fucking marmalade sandwiches?

Not to mention the 100s of millions spent on an constitutional monarchy. I'd rather the money was spent on Britain's children.

I don't think the queen would have cared either way. She didn't strike me as someone who cared for the poor.

In a nutshell!

Oo, lovely! Are you crb checked? Strong? Able to be trained before then? I suppose the staff could cancel today’s, Thursdays’s and Friday’s sessions to train you? 💁🏻‍♀️
I wonder why you don’t volunteer already?

So, many people in paid work don't have to work n that day, but volunteers should?

All food banks are closed I think. I was shocked at first but then I thought about it, it's no different than any other bank holiday for anyone - meaning If you know your going to run out of food and need to restock on the monday, go to the food bank on the nearest possible day to tide you over till Tuesday?
Just a tiny bit of foresight required. The volunteers should get to watch it too if they want.

I am surprised anyone volunteers at a foodbank judging by how the volunteers are seen on MN.

Presumably you donate all your disposable income to charity

All food banks are closed I think.

Nope. Not in neighbouring Lewisham, anyway. And food banks aren’t a homogeneous entity - there’s no reason for all to shut because one does.

There may be other reasons here. I run a food bank. Much of our supply is supermarket surplus and donations. If that supply chain goes haywire (which I expect it will over the weekend and into Monday) we won’t have the stock to offer people. We also can’t buy in some of our usual fruit and veg because the wholesale markets are shut on Monday.

We’ll be ok I think because I’m going in over the next few days to stock up on what I know will last into next week, but if that weren’t the case we’d also shut.

And fwiw volunteers are proverbially queuing out the door to join on Monday. I was really surprised.

Having looked at your updates I can sort of see your point - but realistically it's a tweet, the point is to give information briefly and concisely, it's easier to just say what they did rather than 'sorry we will be closed on Monday because supermarkets are closed so we can't pick up the stock we usually would and also Robert doesn't want to volunteer that day because he wants to watch the funeral, Emily is using the BH to have a mini break away, and Jenny would come in but because her kids school is closed she'd have to bring them with her and we haven't done a risk assessment or have the right insurance for that.'

Stupid of them saying they were closed out of respect for the Queen.

Absolutely fine for them to be closed due to lack of volunteers, and presumably they'll just put an extra day's food in the bags or boxes that are picked up in the next few days.

Our foodbank only opens once a week on a Monday. If it is closing also that will be almost two weeks someone might be waiting for food.