Second last morning for my regular food bank this morning. After Wednesday 11/12 they reopen on January 6. Knowing them, they’ll be delivering emergency hampers this whole time. Emergency hampers not funded by the government, but from funds they’re raised through the year from community members and local businesses.
They’re frantically prepping for their Xmas party Sunday. They have gifts for 2000 kids and hundreds of hampers. They’re even doing gift cards for teens, getting donations for them from local businesses.
Another local foodbank closes Wed 18th at lunchtime, reopens January 13. Another weekly one does their last $15 hampers on the 19th and then comes back Jan 16.
Obviously, all these volunteers well and truly deserve a break, and school holidays and Christmas means less people available to help out. A few more just generally close for school holidays (so not back until February). So then, people are left to their own devices, a time when schools are closed, work schedules are thrown out (sometimes way more work sometimes way less), Centrelink reporting is earlier and people either get paid earlier with the public holidays or they miss the early reporting date and have to stretch til the payment comes through.
With Xmas approaching, a reminder that Centrelink reporting and payment dates are often earlier due to public holidays:
We also all know the chaos of holiday grocery shopping, even on more generous budgets.
So, on this day where Youth Payment indexation has been advertised – up to $24.30 extra a fortnight from Jan 1 – and organisations are asking the government to raise the rate of welfare payments, let’s aim for better and ask for ALL payments to be raised above the poverty line – at last $88 a day if we go with the Henderson Poverty Line. People need money to survive, they can’t actually access safety nets like food banks all year around, give them the dignity of choosing and buying their own food – for Christmas and for every day.
TFIF, am I right? And that the pollies have headed home for the summer break after a chaotic final week, and maybe we’ll get some respite from their pontificating until that election is called/ Rumours around say it’ll be in March, others say it’ll drag on til the usual May.
Food banks don't solve poverty and hunger, they are just a more expensive way to get food that isn't necessarily suitable to to poor people. Raising welfare will help from the bottom up, tax cuts do nothing for the poorest in their country.#RaiseTheRate#88aDayhttps://t.co/DkVqYiQEMV
To follow up on my last post “Just because it’s better than nothing, doesn’t make it “good”, we head back to the food banks as the summer heat and humidity really kick in, and summer shutdowns approach. The charities themselves are also in rush mode, soliciting donations how they can while getting out the Xmas hampers to those needing the support.
But let’s break down that process a little.
Which is what gets me, they ask for direct donations, get corporate volunteers, have other volunteers, food is MOSTLY donated, and yet they have the audacity to onsell it to the local food pantries and then some of THEM mark it up to fund their services https://t.co/z0wfApBmYN
Foodbank™ charges the local charities and food pantries for the hampers and food items they get from them. It’s usually $25 for a prepacked hamper, whether Xmas or through the year, and (often extremely short dated) groceries are sold and the locals then generally on sell them a little above their cost, but sometimes for more. This can be to the point where it’s cheaper to buy items from regular supermarkets, at least on special.
They rely on the labour of volunteers – at the warehouses it’s often corporate volunteers, there paid by their regular employer, often a big (?tax avoiding) business. As do the local charities, but they’re well meaning locals, church members or someone who used the service and isn’t doing as bad as others at the moment. This labour is “free” to the charities, and most people want to be there (though we do hear of work for the dole at foodbanks) but it’s still labour.
“The hampers feature over $70 worth of groceries that will help the recipient create several meals and snacks – breakfast cereal, soup, pasta, noodles, tinned goods, milk, coffee, tea bags, biscuits, etc.”
Emergency hampers are funded by what ever the local charities can get together. SRU asks directly for $25 from supporters to buy a hamper from Foodbank. Vinnies asks for $72 so they can purchase their own for their clients. Foodbank also asks for $35 donations for hampers, again is this on top of the $25 they charge the local charities, any donations made by corporations, through telethons and ones at the checkout. They and other food relief charities like Ozharvest regularly are mentioned by politicians as receiving a block of funding to rent a new warehouse, while not mentioning WHY people can’t afford to just purchase their own food.
The food is standard fare – pasta and vegemite, weetbix and UHT milk and the like. The Christmas ones are similar but with tinned ham and pudding and custard. Not exactly allergy friendly for my many gluten or dairy intolerant folks. All these items are purchased outright it seems for the hampers, they’re well in date and consistent in brands, though it’s possible some of the companies make specific bulk donations. Unlike the stuff that comes from the Supermarkets – the close to date foods or experimental foods that haven’t sold and Colesworth can write them off as donations rather than copping the loss because they purchased incorrectly. Don’t worry, it’s not coming out of their profits.
Then we get to the fresh produce. I picked up some bread from my local food pantry Wednesday, and threw it out Thursday because it was moldy. This heat and humidity is terrible, but the bread was best before the 24th, so for it to turn by the 28th is not all surprising. It’s a pain, and fortunately I could afford replace it with a fresh loaf when I was out last night, but for others that means no bread til Monday or Wednesday when the foodbank is open again. Freezing it as soon as I got it home Wednesday would just have meant I’d be having bread that was not yet showing mold. Yum Yum.
And this is why I scream just give people enough money to feed themselves the food they want when they want it. Raise welfare above the poverty line so people can afford fresh bread that lasts more than a day before turning. So they can buy allergy-friendly foods. So they can choose the fruit and veges and snacks they are their kids actually like to eat. Channel all that extra government funding for warehouses and transporting old food around the country into welfare payments and programs that actually support people. Give them free childcare rather than free weetbix. Tax the supermarkets and the resources companies more so they can directly fund these thigns rather than them pretending to be the good guys by writing off excess food and donating cash and staff labour and getting to put their little logos on things.
Major reform is needed, but you can start by giving people enough money to live.
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Added later cos OMG:
Gonna say it again: if your food relief charity relies on Work for the Dole labour to stay open, it's time to immediately rethink your entire operation pic.twitter.com/yINqIvJfyb
Today we visited CareNet in Templestowe, a remarkable organisation tackling food insecurity by making nutritious food accessible to those in need. pic.twitter.com/olT7JFbQNC
Who doesn’t love them some carbs? Well, coeliacs and other gluten intolerant people would have a hard time with this basket of goodies Dutton showed off over the weekend. As would anyone who’s just relying on whatever comes in their $5 or $10 hamper this week. One thing about the hampers is while they are technically “value for money” and can have like $100 of food in them if it was in date at at retail price, you don’t get a choice of what to get, and while you can make up some meals, there’s plenty missing. Often it’s proteins – you might get some tuna or some chick peas, or it’s fresh items just aren’t there. Luck of the draw, or being able to get to the right place at the right time of the week and able to carry the items on public transport or have a car.
ABC are running a fundraising drive for Foodbank this week (month?) and the articles that have referenced it so far have not called for the obvious – an increase to the base rate of income support payments. This one uses the example of a disability pensioner who also works part time being a foodbank user. This story has older pensioners and talks about them supporting extended families when they can visit the foodbanks.
I’d like to thank Dutton for his foodbank visit this week. It allowed us to point out that Foodbanks often charge for their food. (the laws vary by state). It also let us discuss the lack of nutrition in the hamper he was holding, and how while this may fill a hungry belly, it’s no good long term. Some on twitter said it was the basis of meals and that then people could get their own meats or vegetables or other “Extras” needed to make a decent meal. Friends who’ve had malnutrition on welfare promptly went to remind them that if people are needing to get free pasta, they’re not likely to have money for meat or veges or anything fun like that.
The Christmas season is upon us, and I’d like to put out there that the hampers that your local charity is giving to the needy is usually paid for by the charity. Standard cost to the local charity is $25 for a Foodbank hamper. One local place is passing on $5 of that to the recipients this year. Another place told me last year they were passing on $20 of that to those who could afford it while giving some for free. I don’t know if the $35 ones that Foodbank is directly asking for donations for are different to that or not.
2023’s Foodbank hampers
So yeah, frustrated that the articles asking for Foodbank money donations don’t call for an increase in welfare payments. And that a girl can’t live off carbs alone.
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Oh how lovely, the King and Queen are here. Yeah, much excitement. They made it all the way out rural Parramatta today to meet the RFS and CWA… Yes, they may have still been rural when Victoria was queen, but certainly not now.
Camilla made her way to have a vegetarian lunch with OzHarvest, since they say it was made from the usual daily cookup of rescued food does that mean someone missed out? Where in the budget does the tiny silver spoon go? is it paid for by the labour of the Sydney Street Choir performing for $150/ticket which they will not see? I did ask on Twitter whether they were paying the choir members or whether they were just using them. Pay your fucking talent, especially if you’re exploiting their story and goodwill for your charity. Or will they get a tshirt and have to go back to the foodbank queue in the morning?
So, this is going to be a gratitude post, but it will divert into complaints at stages. I’m doing alright, I’ve been enjoying being paid to post for Nobody Deserves Poverty in an official capacity, with a payslip, superannuation and all. I’m even accruing leave!
I braved taking the Corolla down to the community centre yesterday – I needed bread and this seemed the easiest way to accomplish that. It’s still not fixed – one more part got fixed yesterday but now we need Bruce to have time and energy to put it in, and he’s busy today and tomorrow so I’m back on the trains and buses to get to things still. It’s okay, and doable, just wanna see an end to this saga, which will just kick off the saga of the repairs that are needed on the Ford. There’s some taillight bulb housing and cabling coming today from ebay.
When I got down the foodbank, the giant truck delivering the Foodbank NSW order was pulling in and attempting to navigate the parking lot. These items on the palate are ordered by the local foodbank (and paid for) then shipped up from the giant warehouse to be on-sold or given to clients depending on how the foodbank works on the ground. This one on-sells most things with a nominal markup and provides emergency hampers when needed. Bread comes from the local supermaket and is free. The fruit an veg bags are usually $2 here, and sadly the tomatoes were moldy in the bag I got 🙁
Last week they sold the bag for $1 because it only had Granny Smiths and Potatoes, but that’s totally what I was hoping for so I was super happy.
I’ve also learned why I don’t buy dirty potatoes, they’re SO MUCH MORE WORK.
Downloading Red Dead 2 again, because I haven’t since we reinstalled windows, so I can play the Halloween content soon, and gotta go in and do week three of Sims 4 Reaper Rewards. it seems that plan to just give everyone the max speed of their NBN at no extra cost has gone away. That’s a shame, it would be really useful for these giant downloads!
Started some Xmas shopping with the Amazon sale and popped some things on Zippay that have heavy discounts that have been on my wishlist. Sadly the monitor I want isn’t on sale, might wait til Black Friday, otherwise I can justify it with the HSC supervision work I’m doing over the next 4 weeks. And for “productivity” lol. Got some festoon lights for the back deck which will be way nicer than the current fluorescent that’s out there. Hopefully we can use that area this summer. Bruce put up one lot of my purple fairy lights this week, so I moved my Halloween meerkats to the front porch.
Anyways, I’ve got some cleaning to do while I wait for the downloads to finish, wanna get my place clean and tidy. Make the most of my little life because I’m just looking at my twitter feed and thankful my only problems are so small and there’s not an Israel or a Milton bearing down on me.
