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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Is this Facebook post reasonable or rude and ungrateful?

167 replies

Cantheowneroftheredcorsapleasemovetheircar · 01/01/2026 19:58

Opinions in the comments are split. What's yours?

YABU - rude and ungrateful
YANBU - understandable

Is this Facebook post reasonable or rude and ungrateful?
OP posts:
jen337 · 01/01/2026 21:09

Beggars can’t be choosers.

Haha, no, it’s pretty obvious that you don’t donate perishable foods to a food bank. Probably why the donor dumped it outside than when staff were there to refuse them.

BoxesBoxesEverywhere · 01/01/2026 21:10

Although I agree there's a way of wording things.. The excessive use of exclamation marks seems a tad aggressive 😬

Funnywonder · 01/01/2026 21:10

VikaOlson · 01/01/2026 21:01

If it stopped you dumping loads of food and wasting the food bank's time and money, it would be job done though.

Oh it would definitely stop me. So yes😅

Livelovebehappy · 01/01/2026 21:14

Agree with the sentiment of the message, but it’s really badly worded. It comes across as aggressive towards someone whose actions are coming from a good place. Surely it could have been worded with a softer tone.

VikaOlson · 01/01/2026 21:15

Livelovebehappy · 01/01/2026 21:14

Agree with the sentiment of the message, but it’s really badly worded. It comes across as aggressive towards someone whose actions are coming from a good place. Surely it could have been worded with a softer tone.

What makes you think their actions are coming from a good place though?

They're not donating the out of date sandwiches in the normal way because they know the food bank would reject them... they're quietly dumping them outside when the place is empty.

TappyGilmore · 01/01/2026 21:21

Totally reasonable and I can’t understand how anyone would think otherwise.

If someone has sandwiches to donate, it’s not hard to get in contact and discuss how it could be done to make sure that they can be used, and aren’t wasted. (And it may be that this particular charity can’t take them, but they might know of someone who can.)

Everyone knows that charities who get stuff dumped on their doorstep then end up paying to dispose of it correctly (and there will be time involved as well as monetary costs). That’s why charity shops ask that you don’t leave stuff on the doorstep while they are closed.

And actually I wouldn’t even say that the post is rude or badly worded.

TheFormidableMrsC · 01/01/2026 21:22

I get it but it could have been worded better. While the intention of the dumper is good, it’s a problem for the church and they are right to point that out. We have a local community of people who distribute food to the homeless, including end of day food that supermarkets would otherwise just throw but is perfectly good to eat. That would be a better use of it. I think it’s fair for the church to point out that it’s not ok.

Iwantamarshmallowman · 01/01/2026 21:25

Totally reasonable this happend at our church with a rouge olio rep who kept dumping out of date food outside our door. When we tried to give it away without realising it was out of date we got absolutely flamed on Facebook. when we tried to appologise and explain what happend we were trolled by friends of the person who had dumped it there. we had to contact olio who suspended the person's account. we are also constantly having to deal with people dumping broken toys and nasty books outside. we have to pay to have it taken away. this isn't someone trying to help its somone dumping their old shit.

hufngids · 01/01/2026 21:25

HardworkSendHelp · 01/01/2026 20:00

Totally reasonable post. You cannot dump food like that outside a food bank. It will end up costing the charity money to get rid of it.

Agree. Food needs to be safe to eat and the recipients will have no idea if it has been kept refrigerated or not and who has handled it. They may not have the space to store food overnight and so on. The note could be more polite but we have no idea whether they’ve been trying to stop it and been ignored.

Cookingupmyfirstbornson · 01/01/2026 21:29

The update post and comments are ridiculous

Newusernameforthiss · 01/01/2026 21:31

It's totally reasonable. They probably have about 50 nicely worded, polite, kind notices saying "please don't bring perishable food, tons and packets only, thanks so much"... People don't read things! They just don't!!

So they've resorted to this and if it stops the volunteers having to waste their time and the food banks money to get rid of these useless "donations" that's a good thing 🤷🏻‍♀️

Strawberrydelight78 · 01/01/2026 21:32

That’s not unreasonable they can’t pass that food on because they don’t know how long it has been left there for. It attracts vermin and they don’t know if animals or humans have urinated on it. It will attract birds especially seagulls. It’s a heath and safety risk to use that food. Would you want to eat it? I wouldn’t ungrateful absolutely not. I get the feeling the OP is the person donating.

Namechange568899542 · 01/01/2026 21:32

The premise is understandable but I think it could’ve been worded better given the person doing it likely has good intentions but just ill thought out.

kαλοκαλοκαιρι · 01/01/2026 21:35

LamentableShoes · 01/01/2026 20:35

That's a really good way of looking at it.

thankyou, it wasnt me being holier than thou, i have definitely been in the former camp, i find this kind of question quite useful in helping me assess my motivations

Strawberrydelight78 · 01/01/2026 21:36

pteromum · 01/01/2026 20:54

A bit like the thread when the OP was cross at her husband for using a community waste project.

this food should be going in that. Where people can collect it for animal or themselves but a WASTE project not a foodbank. Where this should not happen

It’s a community centre so that’s probably what this is. We have a community fridge in our local community centre. They sometimes post at night to say they have collected a load of food and need stuff like bread collected as it doesn’t stay edible for long past the sell by date.

TwoTuesday · 01/01/2026 21:41

Completely reasonable. Would the donor want to eat food that had been dumped on a doorstep? Rats could have peed on it for a start.

Politicians247UnderwearExtinguishingService · 01/01/2026 21:44

TY78910 · 01/01/2026 20:43

The message is fine. The delivery is not professional for an organisation. It should have read more or less ‘thank you so much, we appreciate, a small ask is don’t put this in because of this and that. Once again thank you so much yada yada’. ‘Whoever is doing this can you please stop’ absolutely had me 😂😂😂

The problem with that is that the people who do this kind of thing unthinkingly - leaving perishables that need to be kept in the fridge, unsolicited and unannounced out overnight on somebody's doorstep - are the same kind of people who, at very best, would read the first six words of the message and no more, and would thus then keep on doing it with the cockles of their hearts unwittingly duly warmed.

The first rule of signs is that the only people who ever take the trouble to read them are the people for whom they were never required in the first place - and who then scratch their heads in puzzlement at why anybody could possibly need a sign to tell them something so stinking obvious as that.

The thing is that, although they will be running a tight ship and abiding by all of the rules and safety regulations, it's a bit misleading to call them 'professional', when all/most of their workers are volunteers.

These are extremely kind people who are giving up their own time, energy and probably indirectly money as well, in order to do something amazing and helpful in the community. It's one thing that the vast majority of the people who live in the community and who would potentially have time to volunteer to help don't do so; but for them to be doing something so obviously stupid to thwart and add unnecessarily to the workload of the very tiny minority of people who DO volunteer and give so much of themselves is actually quite a nasty thing to do, really.

Like the charity shop fly-tippers, we like to assume that people have good intentions and are just foolish and unthinking; but there are plenty of people out there who would quite knowingly and unashamedly seize on 'doing a good thing' as an ideal excuse to save themselves some time and/or money and space in their own bins. As long as they're alright, that's all that matters.

Tulipsriver · 01/01/2026 21:47

The message of not wanting bread/fresh food is fine but the delivery is horrible.

Someone has gone out of their way to try and help others. They could have explained nicely why their donations were inconvenient, they chose to be rude instead. I feel really sorry for the person who donated in good faith and had to read that.

OriginalUsername2 · 01/01/2026 21:49

These places are run by volunteers so they’re not media trained and won’t be making perfectly worded public announcements.

Let’s just be grateful they exist or we’d have a thousands of people going hungry.

TwoTuesday · 01/01/2026 21:50

They have actually fly tipped though, they could be prosecuted especially if it's a repeat offence. It's not a donation, it's dumping.

Silverbirchleaf · 01/01/2026 21:51

I agree with the above posts who said the message was reasonable, but the wording was actually quite rude.

Goditsmemargaret · 01/01/2026 21:52

Rude as hell. There are a million other waya it could have been phrased to express what they do actually want and why the sandwiches are not required.

Livelovebehappy · 01/01/2026 21:53

VikaOlson · 01/01/2026 21:15

What makes you think their actions are coming from a good place though?

They're not donating the out of date sandwiches in the normal way because they know the food bank would reject them... they're quietly dumping them outside when the place is empty.

I can’t see where OP or the Facebook page states the produce is out of date? Someone wouldn’t just put the items outside the charity just to get rid of them. They could just pop in their wheelie bin, fly tip over a wall, put them in council waste bins. Hence me thinking they’re doing it because they think they’re doing good. The items are packed up nicely, not just dumped there in a bin liner.

DoIdriveaVauxhallZafira · 01/01/2026 21:57

Reasonable, but rude

PInkyStarfish · 01/01/2026 21:59

They sound exasperated at having to deal with the unwanted and unasked for food! Volunteering is time consuming and having people dump stuff willy nilly on them causes unnecessary work and takes up valuable time.