00 worth of fruit and vegetables were donated to a local children's hospice over a 3 months period. This is a wonderful idea. The need for food banks is growing, more people than ever, often people in full time employment, are having to resort to soup kitchens and food banks. I never thought I would write a sentence like this talking about soup kitchens and charity in one of the richest countries in the world in 2011.
We are continually told the worst is over, the economy will grow and the private sector will create jobs. I totally disagree, we haven't even seen the beginning of the "bad times" most people still have some resources; they still have a job although it's hanging by a thread and the hours have been cut, there is a little bit of spare money either on a card, in the bank or post office or a piggy bank sat on a shelf in the kitchen. The winter hasn't started yet so most of us haven't put the heating on yet or budgetted for Christmas yet, "yet" being the operative word.
"People of the Abyss" used to be the term the Victorians used about the poor, I started thinking about what pushes you over the cliff so that you can't meet the bills and how easy it is to find yourself in that situation. One of my cats is ill, she will have to go to the vets and I am looking at a bill of probably a hundred pounds or more. Of course she will go to the vets and I will make a deal with them to pay the fees off over the coming months, I've done it before I don't feel any embarressment explaining that I can't meet the whole bill in one payment. Lots of people are facing those sorts of situations everyday and I joke about mine saying I wrote a book called "Days of Thrift" which I published on Amazon as an ebook looking at being unemployed, broke and facing hard times in our modern society and now as an unemployed single woman with an incurable disease I am living in my book.
The question is what can be done? I think this is a wonderful charity and they are doing great work but a lot more needs be done in a more regulated way. I think supermarkets should give the food they would throw away at the end of the day or when the sell by date is reached to the local food banks, charities like "Food Share" or soup kitchens. A law should be passed requiring them to do this. The reason given by the supermarkets for not voluntarily doing this, which is very clever, is that it is a health and safety issue - they don't want to give food which is not safe to eat to the hungry. In my book I looked at "skip diving" and discussed sorting through the bins full of perfectly edible food and how you can gain access to these food mountains .
I hope this charity goes from strength to strength and I am going to set up a petition on line asking for a law to be passed to require supermarkets to donate their left over food to charity, when I have that set up I will blog the details.
Sometimes I feel like Cassandra, everything I have talked about for years in some cases (my neice has borne the brunt of my rantettes), written about, shouted at the television about and worried about is starting to manifest itself and this last round of "quantative easing" or "credit easing" which is just another bank bail out under a different name shows how badly things are developing. The economy flat lining and unemployment rising are the actual and visible proof of government policies which are not working and shows us all what an ignorant, clueless government we have - the coalition has no clear idea of what to do next about the problems our country faces, no compassion towards its people just the catch phrase "we are all in it together" nor wisdom to guide the EU as it faces problems such as the crisis about to explode when Greece defaults on its repayments and Italy begins to slide too, Germany won't keep picking up the pieces forever.
We the people are going to have to look to ourselves by organising, demonstrating, lobbying, signing petitions, joining UK Uncut and let's use the few decent MPs in Parliament to protect us and change the direction the ideology of the ConDems is taking us in so that we can re-construct a fairer society where "to each according to their needs and from each according to their abilities" really means something. Until then food banks, food share and soup kitchens are going to be a life line for millions of people. See you on the bread line.
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