“Without them, it couldn’t work”, retirees, the treasure of the food bank in Gironde

The food bank is celebrating its 40th anniversary this week! Originally considered a simple emergency measure, the 79 food banks have become essential support for 2.4 million people in situations of food insecurity.

In Gironde, volunteers still distributed more than 4,000 tonnes of food in 2023. This represents 8 million meals for 22,800 weekly beneficiaries. As a reminder, according to the Girondin Observatory of Precariousness and Poverty, nearly 200,000 people live below the poverty line in our department.

For us, everything happens on the Bordeaux-Lac platform where every day tens of tonnes of food are collected before being redistributed to 127 associations and CCAS to help the most deprived. There are a total of 250 volunteers taking turns and among them, as is often the case, many retirees. Chantal has been managing the weigh-in for almost 10 years now: “Most of the time we discover associations when we retire because frankly when we are in active life, we never pay too much attention. We don’t try to understand what they do. We then realize that there “There are a lot of retirees involved and without them it couldn’t work.”

Associations “flirt” retirees

It’s simple on the platform, they represent more than half of the workforce. François joined the adventure 2 years ago: “I wasn’t going to stay at home all day anyway. I had to find an activity and volunteering has always been one of my values. So I naturally came to the food bank.” For Tuixi, it is also a very good way to avoid becoming withdrawn or isolated: “It keeps us in shape and allows us to stay in touch with real life. And then, we also discover activities that we have never encountered in our inner life.”

The best example being Maryvonne, the dean, 92 years old a few days ago. Pierrette, one of the platform managers: “We try to save money but she is extremely active. She comes to work but above all she always has a smile and incredible willpower while we drag our feet, have back pain… So, we dare more say nothing, we move forward (smiles).” And fortunately all these retirees are there because for working people, it is often more complicated with work or children. Pierrette is not afraid to say it, today the associations “drag” retirees to try to recruit them and make the structures work.