To think food banks aren’t fit for purpose

[ForFirmBiscuit]

I don’t need to use a food bank but when I did they gave me tins of soup, a small tin of meat pie, a litre of UHT and a small bag of oats, nothing fresh. I didn’t get much and I was really hungry as there wasn’t enough calories and it was insubstantial. It gave me loads of anxiety to be so hungry. It’s always been like that.
I think food banks should be supplied by the council and given proper budgets for good food, even if they made batches of soup themselves to give out it would be more filling than a tin of soup

I think the man being the breadwinner has only ever been a luxury of the middle classes.

It's a total myth that women didn't work. Think about teachers, nurses, care workers, home helps, shop staff, school cleaners, bus conductors, light factory workers (electronics, clothing factories) and dinner ladies. I'm sure their are loads more traditional female roles.

Do you honestly believe that all those working class women were spinsters without husband or children?

Poor married women would work but the norm wasn't to work after marriage - 1 in5 perhaps

Neither set of my grandmothers worked post children and they were very working class -moved homes as a result slum clearances for example

Housing is the main problem / it used to be 3 times household income as a maximum mortgage and that was fine - that's no longer the case - 3 times 60k doesn't buy much in the south east these days !

Poorer families had council homes / security and reasonable rents ( lower than typical mortgage which was relatively much lower than todays typical mortgage)

1944 the law was changed to allow married women to carry on working as teachers

My grandmothers worked 1 "had" to because her husband died when her youngest child was 2 so she worked full time hours. My other grandmother worked less but both worked past retirement age.

My mum and Aunts worked in the 70s/80s it really is a middle class myth that women didn't work.

I completely disagree. I was born in the 1950s and my Mum always worked as did the Mums of my friends . Various jobs - nurse, doctor , teacher , shop assistant- that’s just off the top of my head.
Often it was part time but i don’t recall my Mum not working .

Good grief OP you're sounding annoyingly entitled!

Food banks are not restaurants. They supply EMERGENCY provisions to tide you over.

Nothing wrong with soup or a pot noodle as a light meal now and then - certainly better than nothing!

Gurdwara temples provide hot meals for free every week, no questions asked. So do Salvation Army.

Just because your mum worked does not make it the normal thing for all married working class women in the uk

You only had one mother

The available data suggests your mother was unusual

Do you get regular users of food banks or are they more a one off kind of thing?

We get regulars but the rule is meant to be no more than 4 parcels in three months.

Wd have users who use a slightly different spelling of their name and register with several organisations who issue the vouchers.

We are a delivery only Foodbank so you get to recognise addresses.

@Needanewname42 lots of these jobs were extremely part time- dinner lady for example is less than 10hours a week. Care workers/home help wasn't much of a thing, care was done more by families. School cleaners were caretakers who were usually male. And yes, lots of women did leave work when they married. Nurseries weren't as prevalent so who would have looked after the kids?

My mother (b1947) and grandmother (b1924) both worked, as did my paternal grandmother. It is and was entirely normal for working class women to do so.

It depends really. As I said above, we have shifted from crisis response to acknowledging chronic need and most of our beneficiaries are weekly and long term. We do re-check their eligibility periodically.

My late aunt was indeed a local Authority home help she worked shifts and weekends

My mil in the UK always worked, as a secretary, and in the family shop. A family friend looked after my DH.

Nurseries weren't as prevalent so who would have looked after the kids

Apart from when they were really tiny, kids would have been a lot more self sufficient. Older siblings would have looked after them and relatives would often have lived close and kept an eye out.

My MIL stopped working when she had her first (of 4) children. 1960s. They were working class and lived in social housing until RTB. FIL worked 3 jobs (painting/removals etc) 7 days a week.

My mum worked as a dinner lady and cleaner but fairly pt.

My granny was a cleaner but only once her husband died before that she was a homemaker. Even then she only did a couple
of hours a day.

Some people's priorities are wrong as to what they spend their money on.
Some people are too lazy to cook and don't know how too.
Some people need lessons on how to create cheap healthy meals and then for example stretch the meal into making something else.
Here's an example, make a roast dinner, get other meals out of it and possible soup.
How to use leftovers that sort of thing.
We have a whole nation of people now, where these skills like your mum or granny had being lost.
Food banks should run classes on how to do this, instead of just giving out food.
Even it's a few volunteers giving advice.

Do you get soft intelligence on what their home life/standards are like? Do they have what could be considered luxuries, like netflix subscriptions, branded clothes, expensive smartphones or are they genuinely on the bones of their arse?

Who do you think they are? The Stasi?

Do you really think that people living in the lap of luxury want a Fry's bento pie and some cup noodles?

Hence "soft intelligence" not interrogation. You can get a feel for their lifestyle. Nowt wrong with a fray bentos!

Why?

I know at our local £4.50 food club (the trolly of food including fresh meat etc) most have the latest iPhone and designer goods 60% seem to have a toddler and older children. Again 80% of those attending are women. Lots of chatter about holidays and such but not “posh” people.

These wouldn’t be people that need a food bank but effectively are using a cheap way to get food, it also unlocks cheaper mots and free christmas presents for children.

The free ones seem to have the same group of people attending. Basically all stay at home mums since it’s within working hours.

Not worked in an actual food bank for feedback on that one.

I contact the local foodbank because we have an allotment and in the summer we have a surplus of fresh veg, so I offered it to them and they said no, they couldn't handle it and only dealt with shelf stable items. Very odd to me, all they would need to do is have a box of veg that people could help themselves to.

Is that more of a Community Grocery style? Is it means tested to join your scheme? Im guessing not? Still.... not quite the same as Food Banks as you say.