Speaking to The Portugal News ahead of the Food Bank’s first widespread drive of the year – to be held next weekend on 30 and 31 May – Nuno Alves, president of the Algarve branch, said its current reality “is worrying”.
Feeding a growing number of people with a growing quantity of donations has left the Algarve Bank in a position where it now needs new installations for its city-based hubs in Portimão and Faro, to accommodate the ever-expanding workload.
“I wouldn’t say it’s getting desperate but we are getting rather worried about that fact that both in Portimão and in Faro, the installations are completely full and we don’t have the ability to expand our work with the space we have at present. We need new installations”, the president of the Algarve Food Bank said.
A new location has been found in Portimão, through talks with the local council and train company REFER, but funds and other donated resources are now needed to achieve the refurbishment works required.
Established in 2007 the Algarve Bank currently feeds around 23,000 people – or some 8,000 families – through 110 registered institutions. Last year it distributed in the region of 1,750 tonnes of foodstuff, which is more than quadruple the amount distributed during the bank’s first year of operations.
Nuno Alves says that while 1,750 tonnes of donated food “is enough to guarantee that everyone has a meal”, it is not sufficient to completely satisfy the needs of the 23,000 people supported in the Algarve.
Working closely with food companies and producers to fight food wastage, the Food Bank has managed to boost its supplies thanks to increasing donations of surplus perishable and non-perishable goods, but this has also placed growing strain on the set-up.
He describes the number of people being supported by the Food Bank via institutions as “quite considerable”, given the size of the region.
“The Food Bank is still unable to quash all needs and I don’t think we ever will. Nonetheless we try to work in a way that will allow us to reinforce our support, and figures tell us exactly that we have.”
Alves explained that the Algarve is also affected by the matter of numbers rising and falling throughout the year according to high season and low season fluxes, when employment varies drastically. However the overall figures continue to rise, regardless of seasonality.
The Algarve Food Bank is also in need of helpers.
It is run entirely by volunteers – among them inmates, offenders serving court-ordered community service, unemployed individuals and benefit recipients – between ten and 12 volunteers work at the Bank every day “but even so it is not enough”, Alves stressed.
Meanwhile the Algarve Food Bank is revving up to stage its region-wide collection campaign next weekend.
The two bi-annual drives – held in May and November – are staged in supermarkets throughout the Algarve where volunteers will be handing out plastic bags for shoppers to fill with donated purchases.
At the top of the Bank’s shopping wish-list are basic goods like tins of tuna and sausages, oil, milk, and baby products. Last year, the food drive held on the weekend of 29 and 30 November garnered 138 tonnes of products.
For more information, see http://algarve.bancoalimentar.pt, email: ba.algarve@bancoalimentar.pt, or website: www.bancoalimentar.pt.