I don’t have a penny, the next food bank appointment is 30th Sept. I don’t know how I’ll last that long. Any faster ways?

  • ghost_of_faso2@lemmygrad.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    edit-2
    1 month ago

    download free food apps like good to go, often times shops in the UK during closing time will punt all the stuff that they normally throw out at the end of the shift on here.

    If you live in London you can live off of this stuff, I was eating free sushi and bakery goods a lot when I was skint.

    edit:

    also look up local churches, sikh ones will feed anyone who walks thru the door.

  • snipvoid@lemmygrad.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 month ago

    I hope this gets to you. I don’t know if you’re claiming any benefits right now but if you are you might be able to get a crisis loan when you have no cash for food. If you’ve already claimed one from the DWP, sometimes the councils will have a separate fund (sometimes called hardship but they change names sometimes) where they can release smaller amounts to help you make it thru. I asked a friend (not on the grad) who previously lived near Devon what they’d recommend and they mentioned a place called Provide Devon but warned that it was ‘faith based’.

    I know it can feel soul destroying, but I’ve had luck asking evening/nighttime supermarket staff if there was anything that they had to throw out that day (like before it hits the dumpster) that they could let me have. This was much further north so ymmv, but it worked when I’ve been in a few pinches. I explained my situation and they would sometimes meet me with humanity. It helped that they also weren’t getting paid enough to care. (I had best luck at Tesco’s btw, and by approaching someone who was just moving shelf items.)

    I know you mentioned there weren’t any sihk temples near you however I did find something called the ‘plymouth sikh community’ (add dot com for their website). If nothing else, langar/feeding the hungry is up there on the list of things you can expect from a sihk identifying community. The website for the Plymouth group I mentioned above has a link to a Facebook page and a gmail address on their ‘members’ tab from their homepage. They might jump at the chance to express their faith and feed someone in need.

    The other thing I’d suggest is to look at any and all local housing associations. Call or (even better, only if you’re able) go In and speak to someone at the desk. Housing associations usually have the ability to refer individuals to some of the private ‘refer only’ food banks, and often times they’ll at least have some kind of hookup on other community resources to point you to in the area.

    That’s all I got for now. I hope it gets to you and I hope you get fed. I wish you love and abundance in your future. If you were further north and across the border I’d have more ability to help. I hope this works in lieu.

  • I live in NYC, I have never personally done this but I know people who have struggled, and the best thing is to maybe not dress in a suit but your nicest clothes, showered, and groomed enough so people think you’re middle class plus going through one unique moment of poverty and not someone chronically poor… and just go to a food place (not a restaurant, somewhere that sells food… deli, grocery store, maybe even a food cart) ideally in a nice neighborhood. Ask to see the manager or ideally the owner (since they have way more leeway than employees) and without giving this huge sob story, politely ask for food.

    They will almost never say no, and in fact you might get lucky and be given a month’s worth of food. It sucks that we have more sympathy for a moment of difficulty for the better off than a lifetime of suffering for the poor but here we are. It reminds me of the state Senator in Wisconsin or Michigan or wherever arguing against free food in schools because kids that don’t get enough sustenance in their youth have a lifetime of reduced intelligence and even charisma and if they gave every kid food, “we’d have no mechanics or bricklayers!”.