To be really pissed off about my office's attitude towards our food bank donation

[LookingForAHandHold]

Every year we run an office collection for a local food bank. This year we're doing one for families with nothing and young children.

So far im the only one who has really donated. I understand times are tough, but it's £1 for a pack of biscuits in Iceland.

People are making horrible comments too, about the branded names etc and the ungrateful brats who don't deserve it. It's for young children. It just breaks my heart.

I'm so close to taking it all home and donating it myself

We do a food bank collection instead of secret santa in our office. I refuse to do secret santa on the basis that employed adults don't need more clutter.
I bought an item from waitrose for our good bank collection. I'm not well off but it could be a lot worse.

Your colleagues don’t sound very nice. You were just trying to do something good. I would just move on.

I don’t understand the fuss about buying branded goods as a treat. Supermarket branded things such as Aldi chocolate are more of a treat than Cadburys. And don’t get me started on Hersheys 🤮

Are you buying and paying for all the name brands for your Christmas dinner then ? Or will your parents ?

When you do have to actually pay for ALL the food for the Christmas period along with presents for your DC, you might realise how obnoxious you sound.

The outrage about donating some branded products, e.g. chocolate, I assume for the children for Christmas, is very telling

branded means branded, eg a cadburys chocolate bar rather than a aldi 'own make' chocolate bar, or kelloggs coco pops rather than tesco own coco pops, or a lindt chocolate bunny, instead of an asda chcolate bunny.

What the charity are asking people to do is spend 3 or 4 times as much on a brand product that they wouldn't even buy for themselves, and they'd probably have to go to a different shop to get it.. so it's unlikely going to happen.

People on full wages have to buy own brand.. Do you honestly think starving families would care which make their chocolate treat is? It's ridiculous when you could get 3 times more treats for these families and you wouldn't offend the people you are relying on for donations, but instead you are purposely asking people to buy overpriced (and it is overpriced, it isn't better quality) products, and support rip off robbing bastards like kelloggs to boot! This charity is crazy for stipulating that IMO.

In fairness, it's nothing OP has done wrong, and I don't blame her colleagues for not supporting it either, I don't buy branded products on principle.

I don't blame people for being annoyed by the bit about 'branded' goods, to be honest. Many of us grew up without that luxury and still buy the cheaper option to make the money stretch. It doesn't exactly inspire generosity to suggest buying the more expensive version.

for all those asserting that this is just a scheme to get good publicity for OP's employer-
my workplace solicits and receives donations for vulnerable families at christmas from a large local employer
not once have I thought 'gosh, how generous the bosses at the large local employer are! what an excellent company they are'
instead I thought
'how nice, there are some really generous people working there at the large local employer'
and also 'I expect they get a decent salary'

OP please don't flounce or express your disappointment/disapproval publicly. Stay dignified and retain the moral high ground. End the collection without comment. Next year if you are asked to organise this again, suggest a survey to find out what charity your colleagues would like to support.

I'm afraid I'm one of those who are not moved to donate. I live near a deprived area and passing by I think why are people with kids smoking so much, it's expensive, have tattoos which are expensive. Never mind me giving a pack of biscuit or two, thats just their one ciggie pack of the day which they should give up for their kids!

I do give regularly to sexual abuse charity in Asia where they help save traumatised children forced to do Web cam work and serve sick adults. I don't announce it to anyone at work or force them to donate. They can choose where they want to give, if they want to give.

Workplaces should leave their staff to donate to their own personal charities as they see fit outside of work. Not be bullied into donating for one person's personal hobby horse.

There are all sorts of reasons. Does the charity have a religious basis as lots of people prefer to avoid charities or organisations that have a religious basis.
OP you do seem a bit black and white and not able to put yourself in the shoes of others and understand why they may prefer not to donate?
For eg perhaps they lost their mum to cancer and have some cancer charities they'd prefer to donate to? Instead you seem determined to think they are automatically terrible people for not donating to this cause.
Try not to take it personally and try to understand that some people don't agree with charity - because sometimes charities propping things up allows the government to get away with not bothering.

Out of principle I don't think any employer should be asking employees to donate anything, that fact it's come from the marketing department makes their intentions especially obvious. I donate to food banks plus my own preferred charities but I would not be involving myself in this at the behest of my employer.

If they want to look good/help they need to do something similar to one of my previous employers where everyone had to wear a christmas jumper on x day, then someone counted all the jumpers and the company donated number of jumpers × £y to charity, and the bosses matched it from their funds too. Company pats itself on thr back without placing the burden on the employee. I then give my money to local to me charity.

Colleagues being rude about foodbank users is unacceptable obvs.

Actually branded products and chocolates are a luxury, a luxury that many parents can’t even afford for their own children.

No homeless children don’t need Coco Pops branded cereal FFS. I would judge this charity for requesting branded items and wouldn’t want to donate based on this alone so I imagine that’s how the majority of employees feel.

OPs attitude stinks because of her judgemental comments about people choosing not to donate:

I just find it jarring that the same people who get takeaway lunches everyday won't donate even £1, then have the nerve to make those comments

It's just maddening seeing the number of treats put out daily but nobody wants to help children who would go hungry otherwise

I just think it's really hypocritical to say "oh I wish I could BUT" while spending so much each day.

It’s literally non of her business.

@LookingForAHandHold I agree with this.

I do! Its a complete joke.
I am in my work 20 years though, I used to give because I felt obliged but not anymore!
We used to give £10, so they'd end up with a decent voucher for somewhere. Large teams so minimum £200. Some managers might give a token box of chocolate/christmas hat or something in return. But most don't. Then they give a really good present to middle management! It's all a bit insulting to the rest of the staff.
As I say, I don't donate anymore.

No one should be unpleasant or make snide remarks about folk who rely on food banks...'There for the grace of God go I' springs to mind.

However I fervently disagree with being guilted into donating to charity. I support two UK and one overseas charity (which I do very quietly) I also volunteer my time and skills for local projects, I even work and pay my taxes too...go me!
I'd feel extremely pissy if someone decided my 'meal deal lunch' should be given to a worthy cause ... No I want lunch and get seriously hangry if i miss it and don't eat till the evening (I don't eat breakfast). Or if I was judged for spending my hard earned cash on an occasion meal out or my bi-annual (every two years) overseas holiday
It's a bit like some friends who 'give' me a Christmas present aka donate to a charity of their choosing and then tell me it's my Christmas present...err no, at least if you want to give in my name, let me chose the charity, otherwise just be honest and say you're not giving Christmas presents! I absolutely loath all this performative / look at my generosity/ worthiness bollocks. Whatever happened to quietly and humbly giving? then again whatever happened to living a quiet and humble life.

I wouldn't donate.

I think UK benefits for people with kids are already very generous. If parents aren't spending that money on food for their kids, then it's neglect/abuse and the kids should probably be in care.

IMHO the reality is that food banks have become a self-perpetuating thing. Once they've established themselves in an area, the feckless simply reallocate their food budget to phones, booze, fags, Sky Sports and drugs.

I don't want to enable that kind of feckless behaviour, so I don't donate.

At the start of the thread there were people saying they've ended up throwing half the donations in the bin because they were past their Best Before dates. I'll happily eat pasta, beans, etc, that are out-of-date, so to learn that it's not good enough for the supposedly desperate tells me all I need to know about the reality of their 'need' (i.e. it's non-existent and they're simply on the blag for free stuff).

It's not the recipients that dictate the quality of the food. It's the rules

Also, not everything is donated straight away so if something is already out of date it possibly won't be fit to eat by the time it's distributed

The rest of your post is vile so I'm not going to bother to refute it.

I just hope karma catches up with you one day

"It's the rules"

Best Before dates are completely advisory and have no bearing on whether food is fit for human consumption.

https://www.food.gov.uk/safety-hygiene/best-before-and-use-by-dates

Dried pasta will last forever, so long as it is kept dry. The same for things like rice.

The only reason for binning it is because somebody has decided that it's 'not good enough' for people that, apparently, can't put food on their children's table. If people are genuinely desperate for food, they're not going to give a flying fuck if it's past the Best Before dates.

What a load of horseshit.

Jesus how horrible.

im running the foodbank donation this year and colleagues have donated loads. We are concentrating on non food items such as shower gel and cleaning products.
I bet this has changed how you view your workmates; if you don't want to donate then you just don't put anything in, I don't really see why it's necessary to berate the people using the food bank. Give or not, as you see fit, but there's no need to go off on one about it.

When the OP fully pays her own living costs she may have a different view on playing lady bountiful and judging her colleagues.

This is why I would never donate to a food bank. I've read so many horror stories in the news - from people getting over 2k a month in benefits using food banks, to people claiming from multiple food banks at once, to entitled people hurling abuse at food bank staff when they don't have enough meat or the specific items that they want.

I don't doubt that there are some people in genuine need, but I think 'record demand' is mostly down to piss takers wanting a free meal ticket.

We're not a third world country, we have generous welfare state. While I think that the comments made by OPs colleagues are rude and overly harsh, I don't think you can blame people for feeling this way. Taxes are a record highs thanks to the ballooning welfare state, and when hard working people go into the office they are expected to pay more? No thanks. There's probably a thousand charities I would support before food banks.

OP I'd not take your bat & ball home over this. You've still got to work with these people.
One email is not haranguing or office-style chugging.
Compared with what we've been getting via email, it's very light touch. Our place is organising food bank donations and I've had 4 emails and a whole bunch of announcements about it. Collections are being done at team meetings so it's very obvious if anyone isn't donating. If we don't donate via the team meeting, we've had it suggested that we share our food bank receipts with the rest of the team.
Oh and if you've already spent £90 on your office food bank collection, I'd not be spending any more.

"Collections are being done at team meetings so it's very obvious if anyone isn't donating. If we don't donate via the team meeting, we've had it suggested that we share our food bank receipts with the rest of the team."

That's absolutely disgraceful. I think you should push back and explain that you don't think it's appropriate to publicly shame staff in that way.

If any of that is true and not just plucked from the Daily Mail, those food banks are not at all well run.

In my area people need a referral from a professional, like a doctor, health visitor, or social worker, the help is limited to a few food parcels, and they have to engage with the benefit system as a condition of getting help. Because older people often don’t claim what they are entitled to. So the opposite of the entitlement culture that you’re suggesting.

Also are you sure that the welfare state is generous? It might have been in the days before the pandemic, but we’ve experienced massive inflation, which has made a dent in most people’s household finances to a degree. It must be affecting people on the lowest incomes the most.

I think people have giving fatigue at this time of year. Offices have collections, schools have collections, churches have collections, Facebook has collections, scouts have collections and so on. And then there are all the other demands on people's time and energy - school plays, choir concerts, non uniform days, Christmas fêtes, Christmas jumper day, and so on. And that is before you even start arranging meet ups with friends, Christmas shopping, wrapping and looming end-of-year work deadlines etc.

Perhaps it is just easier for people to donate a fiver on their phone than go out and buy something for the donation station.

Enforced giving as people have said is obviously getting your colleagues back up op. The comments are likely due to the "name brand" request. It's a bit much for a food bank to request name brands imo. I never buy name brands for myself so certainly wouldn't for a food bank. I consider it wasteful and likely others do too.