Food Banks Don’t Need Your Food. Keep Your Chocolate Sauce and Baby Corn. Please.
You know full well what they actually need
Many years ago I reluctantly became a food bank client. Trying to feed two kids as a single mother with only one income was a challenge after paying to keep a roof over our heads, among other things. There was a recession and I was laid off from my job. The same old story that keeps repeating for most of us.
It was humiliating.
I got over that feeling of humiliation after the first day of standing in a long, slowly moving line, but it still hurt. We’re taught to not rely on charity. You better believe that for a large swath of the population there’s a stigma attached to taking “handouts”. On the other hand, that same swath usually believes you shouldn’t rely on government handouts but on private charities if you’re down on your luck, even when those charities can’t possibly meet the demand. But, there wouldn’t be such a demand if we weren’t all so lazy.
You can’t win.
Every trip to the food bank became an adventure. What would be available? What would I be able to get based on my family size of three? Two cans of green beans instead of one? A fancy bottle of chocolate sauce that clearly came out of someone’s cupboard? A bag full of…
