Donors, recipients explain why giving is easier
More than a dozen people wait in the hallway at the Heron Emergency Food Centre, which these days helps feed nearly 1,700 people each month. They meet briefly with the centre’s executive co-ordinator, Louisa Simms, before picking up their packages containing three days’ worth of food, hoping it’s enough to tide them over until the next cheque or sunnier circumstance arrive.
Even without the interviews, Simms can recognize the firsttimers. Their faces are downcast. They rarely make eye contact. They fidget.
“They are uncomfortable,” she says. “This is not a fun place to come to. How many people are proud to say, ‘I go to a food bank’?”
One of those first-timers is Jean-François Proulx, a 34-year-old just coming out of an alcohol treatment program.
“I’ve been planning on coming in for the last week,” he admits, “and I’ve been procrastinating. It’s tough to ask for help.
“It was a little nerve-racking at first. It’s a little humbling, but I’m glad I came here today.”
In his interview, Proulx asked if there was anything that he could do to return the favour, a common response from clients.
“Most people are so grateful,” says Simms. “They say things like, ‘Can I come and wash your floors?’ Because they want to give back.”
Sackfuls of research have been published on the psychological and physiological benefits of giving: the flood of dopamine-rushed neurons colliding at the medial forebrain pleasure circuit to create warm fires of altruism.
Less is known about receiving and its effects, but the act of receiving can be very difficult.
“Many people blame themselves for being in their situation,” says Simms. “I’d say over 80 per cent of people have a hard time accepting help. You can see it in their faces.”
John Amodeo, a psychotherapist who teaches at Meridian University and author of Dancing With Fire: A Mindful Way to Loving Relationships, says a number of factors contribute to the discomfort people often feel when put in a position of receiving, including a selfimposed pressure to reciprocate; the fear of attached strings; the loss of control; and the core notion that receiving is, in itself, selfish.
“There is a social view that giving is superior to receiving, “he says. “If a person is receiving rather than giving, then they might think they are less than others. They may believe that they have less worth and value to be in the vulnerable position of needing food.”
For Lisa Desjardins, a client at Heron for the past year, being a food-bank client is a double-edged sword, with gratitude on one side and guilt on the other. “You’re torn, but it got to the point where we needed food and the cheque wasn’t coming in until the end of the month. Most people don’t want to have to come here. I’m looking forward to the day when I don’t have to.”
Although she grew up volunteering for various causes and knew there was no dishonour in requiring help, she nonetheless felt a stigma when she walked through a food bank’s doors for the first time.
“I was terrified,” she admits, “because you’re not sure what you’re going to find. You don’t want to have to do it, but it’s there, and when you have to do it, you just have to bite the bullet and do it.
“You have to get over it. A lot of people are very proud and don’t want to ask, but there is no shame in needing help. You have to find it within yourself to accept the help.”
Heather Lloyd is another of Heron’s clients who also helps at the centre — Simms estimates that about 10 per cent of their 100-plus volunteers are current or former clients — helping out a day a week for the last seven years. She also takes part in an annual walk to raise funds, this past September handing in more than $800.
A former resident of Rideau Regional Centre in Smiths Falls, the 63-year-old still vividly recalls how she felt when she first needed a food bank 35 years ago, when she was a single mother struggling on Ritchie Street.
“I felt degraded. I thought I’d never, ever be at the food bank. I thought ‘No, I don’t want it.’ Who ever dreamt that they’d have to take their kids to a food bank?”
More recently, depression and severe arthritis put her out of work — she’d been a nurse’s aide and house cleaner — and onto the rolls of the Ontario Disability Support Program, which forced her back to the food bank. “By the time you get your ODSP and pay everything and your bills, you don’t have enough left for food,” she says. “My way of giving back is volunteering my time here.”
That many clients end up as volunteers isn’t surprising, says Amodeo.
“It can feel good, meaningful, and rewarding to express gratitude by reversing roles and being the giver — ‘I’ve been touched by others’ generosity and it has meant so much to me to be cared about in this way. Now I want to give to others. I want to make a difference in their lives, just as others have made such a meaningful difference in mine.’ That is a lovely sentiment, as long as it’s coming from a heartfelt place of feeling inwardly moved to be of service rather than some selfimposed obligation or prompting from a shame-based inner critic that is prodding or pushing us.”
Simms agrees, though her immediate goal is getting people to simply accept the help they need. She tells the story of a well-weathered gentleman who showed up after not eating anything for three days. She went to get him some juice and a granola bar, and returned to find him back in the hallway, crying tears of gratitude.
“I told him that life is a circle,” she recalls. “You gave in your life, in whatever way you did, even just sharing a smile with someone, and now it’s your time to receive. Allow that to happen’.”