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Belluno, increasingly poor: four thousand people ask for help with their shopping

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The number of assisted persons rose by 40% in times of Covid, volunteers working to find supply channels. Appointment on November 27 with the food collection

BELLUNO. There are over four thousand people from Belluno who are followed by the Food Bank because they are in conditions of poverty. A number that has grown by 40% in the past two years of the pandemic.

Two years in which the activity of the volunteers of the charitable structures of the province of Belluno adhering to the Food Bank (in the case of our province to that of Friuli Venezia Giulia based in Pasian di Prato, Udine) has never stopped, “because, at following the economic crisis due to the forced closure of many activities ”, explain Maddalena Garolla and Giuseppe Torrente of the Belluno food collection,“ the demand for help from the various organizations has increased considerably. Requests for help that are accepted through food support, through the delivery of food, but also through proximity to these people in difficulty, to make them understand that there is always someone who loves them ».

THE NUMBERS IN THE PROVINCE

In the province there are 31 structures affiliated with the Banco del Friuli Venezia Giulia that constantly follow 2,844 people in difficulty. “Unfortunately, 40% more people (over 1,100) have been added to this number, followed to help them overcome a critical moment like the one we are experiencing”, say Garolla and Torrente. In 2020, the Food Bank distributed, through these structures, 141 thousand kilos of food (with a commercial value of about 351,600 euros) from European funds, the Food Collection, the fruit and vegetable sector and spontaneous donations from companies.

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the supply channels

The pandemic did not allow last year to collect so much material through the Food Collection held on the last Saturday in November. In fact, compliance with anti-Covid regulations prevented the use of volunteers in commercial points and this reduced the amount of collection. “If in 2019”, Torrente specifies, “we had 125 supermarkets scattered throughout the province in which to collect, last year the harvest centers were reduced to 15. At the Udine food bank, therefore, they were transferred between Veneto and Firuli only 80 tons of material ».

Given the situation, the Food Bank, through volunteers in the area, had to look for other sources of supply of food in order to meet the demands of the territories. “We asked for help from large retailers, then the European Community greatly implemented its food for the poor. also increasing the variety of products. Fruit salad, baby food, cheeses and cold cuts have also been added to pasta, milk, oil and biscuits. And therefore the content of the per capita package has grown “, Torrente explains, who adds:” But even the individual charitable realities have moved looking for other ways. The Peguy association, of which I am a member, for example, has given life to the initiative of the trolleys placed in shopping centers, which has had a remarkable response: with the trolley in the Hemisphere of Belluno about 80 kg of products are collected per week “.

Even the Unicomm group of Vicenza, which has many supermarkets in the Belluno area, has made itself available to sign an agreement for the collection of its products to be donated to those in difficulty.

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The 25th Food Collection

Last year, the national day of the food collection took place in a different way: donors bought various types of gift cards at the cash desks of the affiliated points of sale, which were then transformed into equivalent donated food. This year it will take place in mixed mode: during the day of Saturday 27 November in the presence – in compliance with the regulations against Covid – and for the whole following week through the purchase of gift cards.

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