My feet have hardly touched the ground this week…
As I sit like an undercover cop in a supermarket car park, waiting for a desperate mother to collect a few bags of goods from Foodbank, I started to jot down a little list of just the stuff that I personally have been involved with this week.
On Wednesday I met the Bishop of Wolverhampton, Clive Gregory, and the Diocese of Lichfield’s Dir. of Transforming Communities, David Primrose, at a lovely church in Darlaston. Along with council officers and people from several faith communities, we talked about how we (that’s the big ‘we’) could help and transform the communities around us.
Why do I mention this; because more and more people are turning to Church and other expressions of faith for help as they find themselves and their families at crisis or breaking-point!
I came back to the Storehouse from another meeting later in the week to see someone sitting in our (aspires to be) reception area, when I asked our volunteers who they were, they replied “This lady has knocked on the vicarage door looking for help and the vicar has brought her here to see if we could help”. So there with a great cuppa and her vicar alongside was ‘Mary’, she wasn’t looking for anything for herself but for her four children…..there was only one item we couldn’t help with: the electric and gas!
Now, we don’t give money to anyone who comes to us for help but we like to be able to signpost them to some other form of help, however in this case there was no one/nothing to signpost Mary to. Oh, don’t get me wrong, we adjusted the type of food we gave her but she still couldn’t cook anyof it and while she now had toiletries, the children had no hot water to have a bath or wash. What difference did it make whether she had the choice of tea or coffee; she can’t make a hot drink until she can “put two bob in the meter”, that’s fuel poverty! Oh, just say it….That’s poverty! full stop, no ifs buts or maybes.
Mary was dreading the forthcoming half-term break from school, not because the children would be under her feet, or she couldn’t get on with her social engagements but because she couldn’t feed them! She can’t afford to send them to the myriad of holiday clubs, her words ring true for so many other families, “there’s no free school meals, they’re going to eat me out of house an’ home, when they’re bored they eat.” We gave her extra snacks for the children; she said she’ll have to hide them to make them last the week.
Back to the supermarket car park and real life; it’s another Mum who’s desperate for food over the bank holiday weekend and impending half-term break. She scuttles across toward me with a look on her face that says, ‘are you?’, “Hi there, have you come from ***dept.?” say I, trying to not look like I’ve been wondering if I was in the right car park after all. “Thank you so much¸ thank you for waiting,” I hand her the bags that match the brand of the store we’re standing near, she looks at the contents and thanks me again.
She goes away laden with most of what she needs to get her family over the next few days; her story’s much like Mary’s, sometimes it feels like a vinyl record that’s stuck in the same groove saying the same thing over and over again but getting faster, at other times though; when someone comes back to let you know they’re back on their feet, that they’d like to make contribution to Foodbank as their way of giving something back – those are the times that keep you going, that remind you why we do this and make it the best job in the world!
In the morning, back at the office there’s a large envelope addressed to me personally; I’d been nominated for a civic award (I didn’t win) for community spirit, someone somewhere thought enough of what we do to put pen to paper. The certificate may have my name on it but it belongs to a much larger, diverse team of dedicated volunteers.
Ok, back to reality; two children’s centre workers are on their way to collect food for families however, there is only one canister of baby formula in the Storehouse and two families needing it. It’s down to who gets here first – ridiculous but true and heart-breaking at the same time.
