Free food here. in My this and that

The church where I work is located in the downtown of the city. So we get A LOT of people in off the streets. Sometimes they just sit and need a place to warm up, but usually they come in looking for help in the form of food or money.

We try not to give out money, because often it is used for things that aren’t necessary to living (such as drugs or alcohol), but when we have left over food from banquets or our regular weekly meetings we package it up and freeze it in meal size portions.

It’s good to help, and food is something we know that people need. Our building caretakers, who are quite busy in the building, take time away from their tasks to bring the food from the freezer to the office for each person who comes in to ask.

It’s usually not that big of a deal. But today we’ve probably had 10 groups of people come in at different times! I wonder what it is today… and why they prefer frozen meals to the hot delicious meals that are provided by the five locations only blocks from here that are way more equipped to be feeding people. I wonder what it is about me, that gets so annoyed when I feel we are being taken advantage of. It’s not like it’s my food, it’s not like it hurts me at all to help out. But sometimes I just get so frustrated when I see 20+ people in a day wanting “handouts”.

Perhaps it’s the warm weather bringing them out today. Tomorrow is food bank day, when Harvest comes and gives out food, using one of our rooms; so I’m sure to get many more people coming in who don’t have appointments and are looking for food.

Sometimes it’s frustrating; seeing the same people every week. Are we helping or enabling. But we don’t want anyone to starve… in Canada, a place that throws food away like it’s no big deal, that would be ridiculous.