A degree was supposed to be a way up. For Steven, a University of South Wales graduate, it did not stop him from needing a food bank within months of finishing his studies.
From the queue to the volunteers' side
Steven told the BBC that he expected to feel judged the first time he walked into the Taff Ely food bank in Wales. Instead, he found he was treated with respect — an experience that turned him into an advocate. He now works with a "lived experience" group at the food bank, the BBC reported, helping reshape how it treats the people who come through its doors.
The changes he has pushed for are small but pointed. The food bank stopped marking its carrier bags, so visitors no longer carry an identifiable sign of where they have been. And clients can now choose their own items rather than receiving a pre-packed parcel — a shift that hands back a measure of control. "There's a stigma attached to it," Steven said of using a food bank, arguing that the feelings of shame or failure people bring to the experience are worth confronting directly.
A rising, and changing, need
Steven's story reflects a wider trend. In the United Kingdom, the Trussell Trust said it distributed more than 2.6 million emergency food parcels in the year to spring 2025, far above pre-pandemic levels. Researchers have also documented significant food insecurity among university students — a reminder that education is no longer a reliable shield against hardship in a high-cost economy, though the precise rates vary by study.
Part of what advocates like Steven are challenging is the caricature of who relies on food aid. Many recipients are working or recently graduated, navigating precarious jobs and rents that outpace wages. Studies of food-bank users have found that giving people a choice over what they take, and removing markers that single them out, can ease the shame that often surrounds emergency help.
The same story in Los Angeles
The pattern is familiar in Southern California. The Los Angeles Regional Food Bank says that food insecurity affects roughly one in four households in Los Angeles County, and that it distributes food to hundreds of thousands of people each month through a network of partner agencies. Demand has spiked at moments of economic stress, and — as in Wales — many who seek help are employed or hold degrees, not the stereotype some imagine.
For Steven, the point is straightforward: economic hardship is a circumstance, not a character flaw, and the places that help people through it can be built to say so. His work, he told the BBC, is aimed at making someone else's first visit feel less like a last resort and more like a door that is open when it is needed.
