Things I learned at my local food-aid:
instructions for how such systems work should always be printed out in multiple languages. every single time someone doesn't understand the rules. and every single times the volunteer at the front has to yell out "can anybody speak arabic?" or "can anybody speak ukrainian?" And some people stay there the entire time even though they already got their food, just because they were asked to translate. I think that's not a good way to handle this and sadly a lot of institutions handle language barriers like that.
it doesn't matter if you work as a volunteer for an objectively good cause, people will hatd you, because they don't learn to place their frustration on the system so they have to take it out on people. similar to any kind of retail or restaurant tbh. If there are no bananas left but someone really wants bananas, they'll be impossible to reason with and complain, as if the poor volunteers have any influence on the food donations.
Being on food-aid might make you cold. Everybody has similar issues and one thing everybody has in common is that they desperately need food they simply cannot afford. People will curse each other, shove others, destroy things out of frustration and try to take more than they're allowed without caring that others will get less or even nothing because of that.
Being kind to workers goes a looooong way. First, of course, because they are human beings, but also because in my instabce for examples, volunteers hold back some vegan stuff, so I can have it. The others don't care if their food is vegan or not, but I do and volunteers are considerate of almost anything if you are considerate. It is that easy. Complaining sadly will get you nowhere but I can empathize with the frustration and anger.
If this system doesn't make you cold, it makes you patient. Some weeks I get enough to get me through the entire week or even longer, some weeks the food I get doesn't last me three days. It's still better than nothing, even if it sucks but there will always be good days.
Even if there's not much food, people will still be happy about "useless" things. My local food-aid takes donations from a flower shop nearby as well and I don't know what it is but there's something so wonderfully mundane in having access to pretty flowers you otherwise wouldn't spend money on. I got some pretty hot pink roses today!
cook. I learned how to cook. You'll quickly have to adapt to using whatever ingedrients you get to feed you. You also have to be able to manage your ingredients. Most are on the being of going bad, so that's something you have to take into consideration too. Makes you really creative.
Being poor is an easy way into becoming right-wing. At least in my case there are definitely mostly immigrants getting their food here. Taking all above points into consideration, if you witness the frustration, the fighting, the lack of empathy for others, it is easy to be lured into a bad mindset of "if the immigrants weren't here, there'd be more for me". Volunteers give their best to divide everything equally among the people. I've heard one sentence from other struggling people on multiple occasions now. "If they were all deported, there'd only be 30 people here instead of 100. We'd all get more." This is what I mean when I say it makes you cold. Of course, everyone is only out for their own survival but the trap here is dangerous.
people have no idea what being poor is like, including me. it's a whole other world.
