The Food Bank's campaign against Hunger collected almost 2.300 tons of food in the last three days, 10% more than in the same period last year, the entity said today.
In a statement, the Portuguese Federation of Food Banks Against Hunger (FPBACF) revealed that it collected more than 2.292 tons of food in 21 banks spread across the country, compared to 2.098 tons in the 2022 campaign.
«The campaign went very well. We had many volunteers and a great response from those who went shopping. Once again the Portuguese showed great solidarity, whether through donating time or food,” Isabel Jonet, president of FPBACF, told Lusa.
Around 40 volunteers made the campaign possible, which ran between Friday and Sunday, under the motto “Your help could be what's missing at a family's table”.
Isabel Jonet welcomed the commitment of the volunteers, «very different people who want to be side by side contributing to the same cause».
«There are a lot of young people, scouts, guides, but also schools and companies that promote volunteering actions, but also people who appear individually”, he said, adding that there are “people of all ages, convictions and even different football clubs ».
In the first two days, 1.555 tons of food had been collected.
The president of FPBACF recalled that there are more and more people experiencing serious financial difficulties: «When people ask for help with eating, it is when all other requests for help have been exhausted. It’s not easy to ask for help with eating.”
«There are around two million people who live on less than 591 euros per month», highlighted Isabel Jonet, remembering that half of these people «live on less than 224 euros».
Last year, 17% of people in Portugal were at risk of poverty (0,6 percentage points more than last year), according to data recently released by the National Statistics Institute.
In addition to these cases, identified in statistics, there are many other situations, such as "young couples with children", who work, have higher incomes, but "cannot pay the bills", warned Isabel Jonet, giving examples of families who "saw the loan of the house increase four times».
«We saw people who never imagined being in this situation fall into poverty», he lamented, explaining that there are more and more people taking advantage of the work of food banks.
As a rule, the Food Bank promotes two campaigns per year that aim to raise basic foods for people in need, such as milk, rice, pasta, oil, olive oil, grains, beans, tuna, sausages, biscuits and breakfast cereals.
The goods delivered to volunteers when leaving the supermarkets were sent to the various Food Bank warehouses, where they are separated and packaged.
The food collected will be distributed, starting this week, to 2.600 social solidarity institutions, which deliver them to around 400 people with proven food needs, in the form of baskets or prepared meals.
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