Serving the Homeless, One Falafel Sandwich at a Time at the usually palatable IPS ipsnews.net:
Pret A Manger restaurants are not just ready to serve hungry patrons, however; the shops serve the community by donating all leftover food at the end of the day to a local homeless service provider. In the District, that service provider is Thrive, D.C., an organisation that supplies the disadvantaged with, among other things, a daily lunch programme supplemented by Pret merchandise.
And then 800+ words of waxing lyrical (in the language of press releases) about how the company does “the right thing” ™ by giving away day old sandwiches to the homeless. By the end of the article, I thought I had read something penned by a hipster who thought it worthy to inform us that the homeless particularly enjoy left over falafel.
Before you think I am advocating that hunger is better than left overs, the answer is of course, no; that’s not my issue with this article. My issue is that supposedly progressive/ leftist media (which is what IPS claims to be) celebrates a corporation donating what would otherwise be waste to feed human beings. Where is the critical gaze to question the system that creates unemployment and subsequent homelessness? A system created and brought upon us by unchecked corporate greed to begin with? And now we are supposed to celebrate when these same companies let the poor help themselves to day old bread? Now that I think of it, that’s a pretty apt metaphor of the ditch we have gotten ourselves into.
For the past decade and a half I have been making all my content available for free (and never behind a paywall) as an ongoing practice of ephemeral publishing. This site is no exception. If you wish to help offset my labor costs, you can donate on Paypal or you can subscribe to Patreon where I will not be putting my posts behind a lock but you'd be helping me continue making this work available for everyone. Thank you. Follow me on Twitter for new post updates.