dfter Black Friday, the food drive. National shopping day for those in difficulty, promoted by the Food Bank, is back on Saturday 26 November. Now in its 26th edition, it will involve 11,000 supermarkets. Assisted by 140 thousand volunteers, customers will be able to decide to buy products to donate to people and families in economic difficulty. And there are more and more: from January to today there were 85,000 more requests for help from the Food Bank than last year. About 1,750,000 people helped. Faced, as we know, with an increase in logistics costs and, unfortunately, with a drop in donations.
The products for the food collection
What products to buy for the food drive? They are, of course, the long-life ones. Canned vegetables, tuna and canned meat, tomato pulp or puree, oil, baby food such as baby food or powdered milk. The volunteers will wear an orange bib, the new identification color present in the Banco Alimentare logo and which will also be used for the bags provided for shopping.
How many are poor in Italy?
The food collected will be destined for organizations that assist the needy in Italy. The data show that 9 million people in Italy are in a state of poverty, 6 million in a state of absolute poverty: this means that 10% of the population in Italy is so poor that they cannot afford regular and balanced meals. Many of them turn to the Food Bank.
In particular, therefore, the products of the Collection will give some oxygen to 9 thousand charitable structures that welcome 1.9 million people in Italy, almost a third of those who live in absolute poverty. 50% of them are Italian, a figure that has grown rapidly in recent years.
The food collection is also online
It can be found on the Food Collection website the list of participating supermarkets and points of sale. For those who cannot go shopping on Saturday in one of the supermarkets participating in the food collection, food can also be donated online, at Amazon.co.uk/food bank, Carrefour.it, Esselungaacasa.it And EasyCoop. com.
The last collection collected 14 million meals
In the last edition, 4,800,000 Italians participated. Thanks to them, 7 thousand tons of food have been collected, the equivalent of 14 million meals for an economic value of over 25 million euros. During the day of the Food Collection it is not possible to make cash donations but it is always possible support the activities of the Banco Alimentare Onlus Foundation by making a financial contribution.
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