Children going hungry in the summer holidays

People changing their views - We often had people begging outside Carrefour in France. Some immigrants, some local poor. The benefits system isn't so generous there.
I always gave them something, cash or something to eat. Usually my friend was with me, and at first she said don't give to them, they should get a job. I said who will employ them? Eventually she changed her view, though she never gave cash. They weren't so well off.
We had a house in the village which the council funded, for needy families. She gave them food items from time to time.

This is one man working towards a solution in Glasgow.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-44795102

muffinthemoo your post has just brought tears to my eyes.
I am just beginning to get mobile again, I shall be finding my nearest food bank, and donating

If you have a school aged child who needs feeding in the holidays just text FOOD to877877 and you will be given your nearest source. No questions asked.

What a brilliant post muffinthemoo couldn’t agree with you more . There are some children in my grandchildren’s primary that break my heart . They’ve got nothing . Is it their fault ? It really worries me what happens to them during the long school holidays .

In 2016 a law was passed making it an offense for supermarkets to throw away unsold food, instead donate to foodbanks. Does this law exist in the UK?
I don't know if it is law Fennel, but a lot of supermarkets do that, or donate food to shelters for the homeless.

grannyactivist I think that is right. People are entrenched in their views and are not open to changing them until they have personal experience. Even then, people will sometimes think that their experience is different to others who they just know are getting £25,000 a year. Those of us who do get it but are not affected or no longer affected just have to do as much as we can I suppose.

I have started responses to this thread many times, but deleted them all. People either 'get it' or they don't in my experience and no amount of explanation or reasoning will effectively change hearts or minds, although I met someone recently who, for the first time has a family member who needs to access benefits. She is finding out that the reality of the system that for years she has thought was a 'cheat's charter', is in fact an impenetrable bureaucracy that, if the applicant is successful, finally offers up a reward of £73.10p per week Employment and Support Allowance for an adult. Out of which £8 goes on bus fare to get to the local Job Centre.
I deal with homeless people almost every day of the week and also with people who are in danger of losing their homes and I have an endless catalogue of real life stories of poverty and pain that occasionally robs me of sleep and of peace. However, I also come across people who lift me from despair to joy with their compassion and care: People who have very little themselves, but ensure they make a donation to the food bank every week, people with cars offering lifts, people with time volunteering, people who bake cakes, wash clothes, make tea, help out with form filling - and a few who offer a cup of tea, a hug and a listening ear. They don't think of themselves as heroes, but my goodness the world would be a sadder place without them. Sometimes a homeless person will tell me of a man or woman who once did just a single small kind deed for them, but to that person on that day it made all the difference in the world.
Feeding people, adult or child, deserving or 'undeserving', comes high on my list of kind deeds.

MissAdventure Been there. I didn't find that mythical land of plenty either.

Thank you, jaycee
I was promised a phone call today, but of course, it never came.
If anyone thinks I'm living some sort of 'life of Riley' they would be welcome to my world to try it out.

I hope it gets sorted out before too much longer MissAdventure. That kind of thing happens far too often.

I haven't had to use a food bank yet, but the dwp haven't paid me for the last six weeks, owing to paperwork being sent 'to somewhere that doesn't exist', according to the woman I spoke to today.
None of it my doing, circumstances beyond my control have put me in this position, and I can only say that having been on this side of the fence, that I've every sympathy with those who need help.

When I was a kid, there was a particular Lenny Henry appeal film on Comic Relief that’s always stuck with me.

He said: “If you knew somebody on your doorstep who’d walked 11 days because they were starving and needed a quid for food, you’d say, ‘Here, have a bl**dy quid, actually, have five’.

The point is, forget geo­­graphy, these are your neighbours, this is your doorstep.”

I know there is not a single poster on this thread who, if they opened their door to find a couple of hungry little kids with a note saying they’d had no breakfast, no lunch, and could you please let them have a tin of soup so they could have some tea, would keep those kids on the doorstep interrogating them about their parents’ lifestyle and work history.

There’s not a poster on this thread who wouldn’t feed the kids anyway. Maybe there would be questions later, but there’s no poster on this thread that would turn those wee ones away hungry.

The kids at the foodbank have got a note - their referral from services. A lot of them have sh*t parents. I worked in the field with families in trouble. I know a lot of these kids aren’t fed properly or regularly because someone is drinking the benefit payments, or frankly because someone can’t be ars*d to look after them, or because someone is actually doing it to be cruel to them.

I know there are a lot more hungry kids than people realise, even from foodbank figures.

I don’t think any child should be hungry. I don’t think how badly their parents behave justifies any kid being the one to be punished by being hungry. No kid deserves to be hungry in a country where food is everywhere.

I don’t care that I live somewhere nice and my kids will never be hungry or see hungry kids every day. This is my doorstep, they are my neighbours. I will do what I can to help those hungry kids, even if it seems like not much or not enough. It is something.

My husband and I keep to the adage that "every man deserves a hot meal once a day".
No matter what background, colour or creed.
Seeing a meal being eaten somehow takes the doubt out of giving.

Children are never to blame for lack of food in the home.
Lots are very hungry, unhappy, confused and then anger sets in as they grow older and more aware.

I think we have to find a midway point between total judgementalism and "do whatever you like, you've had a hard life, I'm not presuming to criticise." And that's not an easy one to negotiate. No, we don't want to return to Victorian notions of 'deserving poor' so those whose morals/ religious observance fall below expectations are denied help. (Altho' doesnt the NHS sort of do this in refusing surgery to folk who refuse to quit booze & fags? And haven't they got a point?) Nor do we want to blame kids for parents' failings. BUT there has to be responsibility! If you don't give your child a hot meal all week, then unless you're actually provably destitute, shouldnt there be intervention by state? It's not a matter of throwing extra handouts at them - they're failing. And I'm not going to say "well, poor soul has a tough life, she NEEDS to spend her tiny income on fags to cope." Sometimes we HAVE to do the right thing.

If we have a welfare state, there are always those who will fall through the net and those who abuse it. I agree with those who say that the children cannot be blamed for having feckless parents.
Is it a generalisation that those visiting the food banks have huge TVs, Sky and smartphones? Do we really know that or is it an assumption?
As for the scratch cards, those who are desperate for money are easily tempted into buying them on the hope of getting some extra money. I would not blame them for that as long as a lot of money is not spent on them.

grannypauline Well said. There is no point in starting with the idea that it can't be done.

Peep - interesting questions.

We need to take the wealth from the 1% (724 billion and counting) and freeze their assets so they don't take them abroad. We will need to demand repatriation of those funds they have stolen from HMRC and placed in off shore banks.

The answer to billionaire thieves threatening to leave is to nationalise their business empires. There is enough wealth to guarantee every person a decent standard of living - but not while supporting a billionaire class.

Of course the wealthy begrudge any pennies for the poor and have the audacity to make them scapegoats!!

Peep Firstly not everyone would moan and it has been proved that tax inspectors bring in more than they cost (which makes the reduction in their numbers ideological). The opposite is true of the amount spent on the small amount of benefit fraud.
Family finances are quite different from a country as families can't create currency. The Treasury is not short of money (as the bung to the DUP proved). It is how it is distributed.
Eventually there will have to be a universal income or something similar but we are a way from people accepting that.

Should really add that the tears were put on to get lots of sympathy and cups of tea etc along with additional off the record food allocations.

I was helped a lot with advice from gransnetters because I had a past experience stopping my urge to give to food banks. They gave me the help I needed to start giving.

I have had first hand experience of a mature single mother abusing the food bank system.
Providing cigarettes for herself and her boyfriend and petrol for the boyfriend were priorities.

She registered at as many food banks she could find.
When the allocated visits were over she went to the food banks or the church and burst into tears.
With a two year old in tow and a teenager at home they would not let her go empty handed even though she had had her allocated turns.

I posted on gransnet the full story and my problem was the memory of this mother was stopping me contributing.
I now give in food, sanitary product toiletries and dog food.

So.......What is the answer? If taxes and ni were to be increased to deal with ‘all that is wrong in this country ‘ everyone would moan.
Tax the rich? Most would move to other countries. Deal with all the tax evasion? That would probably cost nearly as much as got collected.
As with family finances the country also has emergencies. Has any country in the world found an answer?
Perhaps stop calling for any expensive inquiries into the next things to hit the headlines, etc. etc.
5th richest country? Are we really?

Nanna58 I agree. I am Labour and voted Leave but it had nothing to do with immigration (Remain voters frequently tell me I am lying when I say that). I has not been possible to have rational debate because of the judgment and I think most Leave voters have stopped getting involved in online debates on the issue.
The poor bashing has been getting worse but it is no better than any other form of bigotry.

This is the charity I referred to:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restaurants_du_C%C5%93ur

Barnet, judgement is rife it appears! I voted Tory, wanted Brexit very badly, but not because of my dislike of immigrants ( just EU meddling and incompetence) and I in no way agree with the way some posters are thoroughly into ‘ poor bashing’ and often contribute to our food bank,