FFS Foodbanks are not an exercise in making the middle class feel smug! Ours not only supports circa 80 families a week in our district (and for what it's worth we also provide a supermarket voucher (of their choice when available) to allow them to purchase some fresh food with their standard parcel of food), but supports clients with energy bills and signposts/refers them to a variety of other organisations or council departments to provide ongoing support to enable them to pull themselves out of, or support them through the situation that resulted in them needing one in the first place. We also work with charities such as the clothing bank and local foodshare scheme (which distributes surplus fresh food from supermarkets, shops and producers). We also use our limited funds to address the very specific individual needs of a client on a case-by-case basis, such as recently financing appropriate baby equipment and supplies for a struggling family who were surprised with a premature baby.
We have stuck to a delivery model since the pandemic to ensure that clients with no access to transport (or unable to fill their car with fuel) are provided for, we will be moving back to collection as an option shortly but delivery allows us to access our rural clients, so will continue with it. But there is always room for improvement in service and efficiency and we're always analysing the needs and trends of our local population to provide as best we can.
Just a word about why don't we just rid ourselves of foodbanks and give people money/vouchers.
Our clients come from a plethora of backgrounds, struggling with a variety of problems - unfortunately many of them struggle with alcohol or substance abuse, levels of illiteracy, mental or physical health problems which stop them from being able to access shops, or some simply are not capable of prioritising their budget and making sensible decisions about spending money on healthy, nutritious food for themselves or their families for whatever reasons (low levels of education, mild learning disabilities etc.). You may think that the latter statement sounds judgemental - but this is the reality we are faced with on a regular basis. A huge amount of our clients are families with children, we provide enough food for 7 days, including plenty of food with high nutritional value and slow release energy - of course we also supply some frivolous, nice to have food, as well as cleaning products and toiletries. Plus accommodating dietary needs as best we can and ensuring pets are also fed. We're covering as many bases and reaching as many people as we possibly can.
Vouchers would need to be permanently marked (i.e. not a removable sticker) as only being able to be used for food/non alcoholic drinks, which creates an element of stigma (something we work hard to minimise at the Foodbank) and just transferring/giving money to them is not an option as, as I already alluded to above, this would very often not be spent on purchasing food. By just doing the above we would not be fulfilling our objective of ensuring that everyone who needs us in our district receives food which, to the best of our resources and ability, will provides them and their children with the energy and nutrition a human body needs.
And finally, our volunteers come from all walks of life, yes some are well off people wanting to give something to the community, we also have former clients of the Foodbank, retirees and people who can't work for a variety of reasons. We're not just a bunch of privileged do gooders, but a group of people who have a genuine desire to support those most vulnerable in our community and counter the side effects that a run of ineffective governments have had on people's ability to feed themselves and their families.
Sheesh - I can't believe I had to write this out!