It was several years since I had seen her and I felt I was now intruding on her privacy. A surge of discomfort overcame me as I sleeked away, hiding from Joy, watchful until she had left. All I could think was “Joy must have fallen on hard times”. I felt ashamed of my thoughts but could not shift my discomfort for her current situation. Two weeks later she was in Foodbank again, loading her trolley with pasta and rice. This time Joy looked straight at me and said, “Hello there, I saw you a few weeks ago, you’re volunteering here now, I was hoping we could have a cuppa”. Her honest smile and welcoming invitation were strong, I could not refuse.
Soon we were sitting together drinking coffee, eating orange cake and just as comfortable as ever in each other’s company. She explained she had recently moved into a new suburb and, true to form, had contacted those with whom she now shared a community. Joy said her next-door neighbours, Jack and Sarah, had fallen on hard times, and “so had a few others in the same street, and as I love to cook there was only one thing I could think to do, make dinners for them”. She applied for and gained a small Government grant to make community meals for her neighbours. I was relieved and proud to be Joy’s friend, and also ashamed I had jumped to a wrong conclusion.
Directly or indirectly, Foodbank provides meals for people in need, millions of plates of nourishment each year, and has done so in Victoria for almost 100 years. Back in the 1930s the Great Depression left many people in great despair. Other than some charities and religious organisations such as the Salvation Army, there were few of the social safety nets we have today. Back then, government provision for needy people was minimal. Sustenance payments (‘susso’) or food stamps were given to unemployed men to provide basic groceries, milk, bread, but not much more. The Victorian State Relief Committee was set up to distribute surplus food donated by markets, farmers, retailers and manufactures to people without the essentials to feed their families. Soup kitchens, school lunches and breakfast programs and communal dinners were everyday events. Volunteers provided most of the labour and worked for free, doing whatever job they were asked to do. Foodbank evolved in the 1990s across Australia, functions on much the same model as in the 1930s and operates in very similar ways across the world. Workers today are also doing whatever they are asked to do. There is little new about feeding hungry people.
