Food, Glorious Food by Eirin Thompson
Sometimes the smallest donation could be the most gratefully received . . .
ELAINE and Josh made a bit of an odd pair. He was twenty-one, an enthusiastic member of his church group, and reckoned himself an unstoppable optimist.
Elaine was twice his age, a divorcée who thought the world was a pretty tough place, which anyone with a working conscience should try to make just a little bit more bearable for others.
Their different roads had brought them to the same junction, however, which was the bright, airy foyer outside their local Bestco supermarket at nine o’clock one Saturday morning.
Elaine and Josh had been teamed up from a list of founding volunteers for the town’s new food bank.
They were to stand outside Bestco for the next three hours with an empty trolley, handing out little bookmarks printed with a list of all the non-perishable items the food bank wanted to gather in for distribution to society’s most needy.
Items included breakfast cereals, pasta sauces, tinned meat and fish, long-life fruit juices and UHT milk.
The hope was that shoppers would add one such item to their purchases and drop it in Josh and Elaine’s trolley as they left. By the end of the day, if not by the end of Elaine and Josh’s shift, the trolley might be heaped with groceries.
Josh could hardly contain his excitement as he popped his bright food-bank polo shirt over his T-shirt.
“Just think how blessed all those people will feel when we hand them two or three bags of free shopping at the centre,” he said.
Elaine didn’t reply. She thought it was shameful, in this day and age, that anyone had to queue up for a few tins and packets of food they hadn’t even chosen for themselves.
The only thing worse than food banks for the poor was no food banks, but that wasn’t saying much.
“What do you think you’d most like to find in your bags if you had to use the food bank?” Josh asked her. “I’d be happy to find custard. I love custard. When I’m feeling really down, a bowl of custard always cheers me right up.”
What planet was this child living on, Elaine wondered. In what universe could the ills of the world be redressed by custard?
He was a good advertisement for the food bank. Volunteers should seem enthusiastic and positive. Elaine looked dour, which was altogether the wrong message. Her demeanour should promise hope, not suggest gloom.
“The thing I’d be most grateful for is toilet rolls,” she replied without a smile. “Try living without those for a week or two.”
“Hello,” their first customer said. It was a woman with a baby in a buggy. “I’ve read about you in the paper. Do I just buy a couple of items off the list and leave them with you?” Josh beamed.
“That would be great.” “No problem,” the woman said, reading the list as she pushed her buggy off towards the aisles.
Along came two people together. One was an older man, rather dapper, Elaine observed, with bright eyes.
He took a list silently, possibly because he couldn’t get a word in past the middle-aged woman who was haranguing them.
“You’ll get nothing from me!” she exclaimed. “What about my family? We all work and pay our taxes and nobody gives us free shopping.
“These people are getting thousands in benefits, are top of the list for houses and have the National Health Service at their beck and call.
“As if that’s not enough, you want us to buy them coffee, tea and biscuits!”
“I’m sorry you feel like that.” Josh was taken aback.
“Our clients are all referred to us by independent agencies,” Elaine explained, looking the angry woman in the eye.
“Health visitors, for example, who know when a family with children have hit a hiccup with their income so they’ve been left with no cash.
“Yes, it could be that their welfare benefits have been held up by an administrative error,” she allowed.
“But it could also be that someone has been made redundant or fallen ill, and the payment to which they’re entitled hasn’t come through yet.
“I hardly think giving them some Rice Krispies and tins of beans could be considered indulging them. Do you?”
The cross woman grunted and walked on.
“She was a bit full on,” Josh observed. “You were brilliant, though.”
“Forget about it,” Elaine replied. “We’re bound to get a few like that, but most people will be fine.”
She was right. In no time, their trolley started to fill.
The woman with the buggy was first,
dropping a pack of tuna and a bag of pasta into the trolley on her way out.
Josh asked if he could give her a hug. Elaine rolled her eyes, but smiled.
Together, the pair approached dozens of shoppers as the time rolled by. Lots of people were happy to donate; many dropped more than one item into their trolley.
It became obvious that a lot of their donors were canny as well as generous, shopping for buy-one-getone-free offers and other special deals so they could make their gifts go further.
Some people asked if the trolley would be outside Bestco every Saturday, or if there was a collection centre where they could hand in items. Others wanted to know if more volunteers were needed.
Four or five individuals quietly asked how to go about seeking a referral.
Elaine grew to like the way Josh maintained the same enthusiasm for each new face, and Josh noticed that Elaine didn’t skip anyone just because they looked old or poor themselves. She gave everyone the dignity of being invited to help.
They both saw the dapper older man emerging from the supermarket. He had a full trolley, but stood and talked with them about the food bank project.
He wanted to know how it had begun, what the criteria were for using it and how it had fared in other towns.
“What a lovely old guy,” Josh commented as their interviewer left them to it.
“One of those people who makes the world a nicer place,” Elaine replied.
They both realised the man had walked off without his trolley of groceries.
“You’ve forgotten these!” Josh called after him.
The man looked back in surprise.
“Oh, those aren’t for me,” he said, as if it were obvious. “Those are for you. I just came in for this.”
He tapped the newspaper under his arm, smiled, then turned and walked away. ■