2013_12_02_granrecogida

Solidarity drop by drop

Lucía María Martínez Alcalde
6th Philosophy + Journalism

Last year was the first time I collaborated with the #GranRecogida, in the team of volunteer tweeters that was formed from Tantaka to cover the event on social networks. I was very moved on the one hand by the work of the volunteers and on the other hand, by the solidarity of the people: almost everyone gave something, even if it was little.

This is something that I have been able to see firsthand in this III Great Collection in which I participated as a volunteer for the Food Bank and also as a twitterer. The solidarity of the people was constant. I was very impressed by a Peruvian woman: when she entered the supermarket she did not want to know much of what we were telling her, I think she thought we were trying to sell her something, because later, when she had already paid for her purchase and saw us with the boxes, she approached us and said: "Ah, this is to collaborate by giving food, isn't it? Well, I have several things at home that I am going to bring down to you now". A few minutes later she appeared with a bag full of rice and pasta and told us that she also received food from her parish, but that she could give those food packages to people who needed them more. She also asked us if we would take "potitos". And the next hour she showed up with a whole box of food for the little ones.

You are touched by the small details of people who donate with their hearts and heads: a lady brings nougat "because people with fewer resources will also want to have nougat at Christmas, right?"; another woman gives us a huge container of powdered milk for babies; a girl asks us what food we need more, we tell her that we mainly have pasta and rice and we need more canned food, and she appears a few minutes later with many cans of tuna and sardines; a man donates two packs of gluten-free spaghetti thinking of people with celiac disease...

Hundreds of small (and not so small) stories that give a lot of hope and that will help not only the 39,000 people who benefit from the Food Bank of Navarra, but all of us who have been able to experience them up close.

Raquel Rodriguez
PIE of the service of External Communications

It is impressive to see how many people are moved by a campaign like "La Gran Recogida"; people who go to the supermarket to buy a packet of coffee for their house and leave with three full bags of food for the Food Bank container, people who have little for their family but spend part of that money to share it with those who have even less.

When you are there as a volunteer waiting for people to come in and explain what the campaign is all about, you see that the vast majority just have to look at the container to know what it is and many reach out to grab a bag even though you haven't said a word.

In the short time I was volunteering (less than two hours) half the container was filled and there were people who came exclusively to buy for the collection. There was a man who told us that he loved that something like this existed and that he had come from his town to participate because they didn't do it there; and a lady who offered me a bag and asked me for three because she couldn't fit everything in one. And many more people who, with little or a lot, contributed their grain of sand so that people who have nothing can live a better life.

When I finished my shift I went to another supermarket in Barañáin to see how the collection was going there and I was talking to one of the volunteers of the Food Bank, a retired man who was delighted to be able to help others. He told me that last year he was in the same place and at the same schedule and that at that point in the morning, they had collected about half of what they had collected this year and that it seemed that this time people were more aware.

So I am left with the solidarity of people who move for others no matter if they are strangers, knowing that with little they do they can make someone's life a little better.