Volunteer or look after myself? I chose to help
IN the first week of lockdown, I was faced with a dilemma – volunteer at my local foodbank to help those most in need during the coronavirus crisis, or stay at home and keep myself and others safe.
It felt like a Catch-22 situation.
Most of the volunteers I work with are over 70 years old and so I felt duty-bound to volunteer so that they could continue self-isolating.
I would much rather put myself at risk than them.
Our foodbank in Erdington, Birmingham, is one of the busiest in the area. We have on many occasions received more than eighty vouchers requesting urgent food supplies.
Each voucher does not always equal one person – some of the vouchers we receive are for families of five or six, and so the real number of people accessing our services is in the hundreds.
On this occasion, we could not fail these hundreds of people, so my dad and I decided to go and volunteer.
We arrived at the foodbank an hour and a half early to help prepare parcels.
Our supplies were more limited than ever and many of the volunteers had rightly stayed at home, so it was non-stop.
We prepared around fifty parcels before we opened our doors, to try and get ahead of the rush – these were gone in the first twenty minutes. For the next few hours, we desperately packed food and distributed parcels to those who came through our doors.
We had adapted our set-up following the Trussell Trust guidelines to minimise face-toface contact. However, this meant that we could no longer offer tea or a chat, which is something many people using our foodbank so really value.
Eventually, the only foods we had left were tomato soup and beans, and so we were forced to turn people away.
We received 113 vouchers – the highest number ever received by our foodbank.
Since that day, I haven’t been able to return to volunteer, as it was felt that it was not safe to operate the foodbank in person.
All I can now do is to donate to foodbanks, and to urge others to donate, so that this food can be delivered to homes.
We need to work together as a community to protect the most vulnerable during this crisis.
This could mean pooling resources with your neighbours if you can, or ask yourself if you really need two of the same thing. If you have extras, please donate them to your local foodbank. We need to shift our thinking from “I” to “we” and support each other.
A crisis does not have to mean selfishness – we are better than this.
As well as supporting others practically through donations, we need to consider how to treat others with kindness.
Too often on social media or in inflammatory headlines you see people who need help called “scroungers” or “burdens” – this is not only cruel but inaccurate.
Access to food is a human right, and it should not be the case that our welfare system has to be patched up by charity to stop people going hungry.
I would also urge you not to believe stereotypes you may be hearing about young people. For every young person who is not taking the situation seriously enough, there is a young person like me trying to do what we can to help those most in need.
We will continue calling our elderly relatives, shopping for our neighbours and using social media to reach those most at risk until we no longer have to.
The contribution that young people can make to our communities and to each other should not be dismissed or forgotten.
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