Doing good with food: Food aid volunteers’ understanding of food access issues

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore food access issues as tackled by an association that runs a week-end soup kitchen in a social welfare center in Bucharest, Romania. The research focuses on how the volunteers involved in this food charity activity perceive the beneficiaries of their generous act and their current life circumstances, as well as the extent to which a sense of responsibility informs the charitable cookers’ perspective on the donated food recipients.

Design/methodology/approach

The findings presented in this paper are based on volunteering work done within the association, more precisely on participant observation focusing on the purchase and cooking of ingredients. It also relies on extensive semi-structured interviews with one founding member, and with two other volunteers who regularly participate in the charitable cooking sessions.

Findings

Due to the specific way cooking and food distribution take place within the week-end soup kitchen, contact with beneficiaries is very limited and the volunteering activity is unlikely to fuel reflections on and actions against the underlying causes of inadequate food access.

Originality/value

There is a growing interest in studying food poverty in Romania, where private, non-denominational organizations focusing on food access are struggling to build a stable and equitable food (re)distribution system. This paper offers new insights into food aid organizational features that support and help advance both wider participation and long-term sustainability.

Citation

Ionita, I.D. (2019), "Doing good with food: Food aid volunteers’ understanding of food access issues", Journal of Organizational Ethnography, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 57-67. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOE-01-2018-0004