Danny Alexander's mother sets up a food bank

[SpookyFrank]

We had some local christian and muslim bigwigs involved in the early stages of setting up the local foodbank. They all bailed on the project before the first tin of peaches was given out, having seemingly decided that helping disadvantaged people was not a good enough justification for swallowing their pride and working with muslims/christians/people with no particular sky-pixie preference/actual disadvantaged people; delete as appropriate.

Basically if they couldn't slap their god's name on it somewhere, they didn't want to know. Of course we've had individuals from all walks of life volunteering, but the 'community leaders' and religious organisations want fuck all to do with it.

Same everywhere of course. In any community, however it's defined, you will have decent people and you'll have arseholes. The arseholes are usually the ones who've somehow placed themselves at the top of the pile.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

slight derail, as part of my degree i undertook a small ethnography in a trussell trust food bank, intending to document some of the individual stories. i soon found that the staff there were fascinating to watch, they surrepticiously had some ahem 'interesting' views on the service users to say the least. apart from seeming to see it as doing their christian duty in helping the feckless poor, they struck me as very 'middle class' and and occasionally condescending and judgemental. i heard some pretty shitty comments and i got the impression that food banks were 'their ball' and they were determined to keep it for themselves. i'm sure there are many decent people working in food banks who i don't wish to impugne, but if possible, would much rather these food banks were run by the communities themselves.

Yep. Precisely why charity can never be a substitute for universal benefits.