Curiously, this rather wonderful protest song (above) is not sung by impatient young Marxists, but wise old mainstays of the community in Sudbury, Ontario. The "big society", if you like. For years they have been volunteers at the local food banks. And they've had enough.
In fact, though they express themselves politely, they are furious. Alf Judd, the director of operations at Georgina Community Food Pantry, explained their frustration:
I began volunteering with the food bank in 1990 thinking I would do this for a couple of years; here I am 22 years later.
The Sudbury volunteers' clever adaptation of the Paul Simon song 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover, is part of a campaign - Freedom 90 - to make obsolete the charity food banks they themselves helped to create and sustain. Many are in their sixties and seventies; their explicit aim is to "retire" from food crisis volunteering before they reach the age of 90.
Its an unexpected campaign - older people, prosperous pillars of civil society, not obvious radicals - that has prompted the kind of bemused, if slightly patronising, press write-up that asks:
What if the little old ladies who run the neighborhood church food pantry rebelled?
But they are deadly serious, and have two serious demands: that social assistance and minimum wage levels are sufficient for everyone to have adequate housing and to buy their own food; and that government takes meaningful action to end poverty and make food banks unnecessary.
Guardian
From May 2013
In fact, though they express themselves politely, they are furious. Alf Judd, the director of operations at Georgina Community Food Pantry, explained their frustration:
I began volunteering with the food bank in 1990 thinking I would do this for a couple of years; here I am 22 years later.
The Sudbury volunteers' clever adaptation of the Paul Simon song 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover, is part of a campaign - Freedom 90 - to make obsolete the charity food banks they themselves helped to create and sustain. Many are in their sixties and seventies; their explicit aim is to "retire" from food crisis volunteering before they reach the age of 90.
Its an unexpected campaign - older people, prosperous pillars of civil society, not obvious radicals - that has prompted the kind of bemused, if slightly patronising, press write-up that asks:
What if the little old ladies who run the neighborhood church food pantry rebelled?
But they are deadly serious, and have two serious demands: that social assistance and minimum wage levels are sufficient for everyone to have adequate housing and to buy their own food; and that government takes meaningful action to end poverty and make food banks unnecessary.
Guardian
From May 2013
