Caritas is looking for volunteers for home collection
politics
Next week, Caritas will start its home collection in the Archdiocese of Salzburg again. It is intended for the needy in Salzburg. The need for donations is very great because of the CoV lockdowns and high energy prices. And we are still looking for volunteer collectors.
Christine Witzany is on the road every year as a volunteer house collector in Salzburg-Herrnau – this year together with the volunteer Georg Lämmerhofer.
Witzany started back in 1957 and has since visited several generations at home: “Every donation counts – and every person. I may have to go to some people a third time before I reach them. Then I hear, for example, that someone has been in the hospital for a long time. People are not as dismissive as some think.”
Easier to help in the city than in the country
60 percent of the donations are used by Caritas for the needy in the Salzburg region. 40 percent remain in the respective parish and are given to the poor there, as Pastor Alois Dürlinger from the Salzburg-Mitte parish association describes: “In rural communities it is difficult to help someone. Because many people there do not dare to report. It’s a bit easier in the city because of the anonymity.”
More and more poverty – also due to inflation
60,000 people in Salzburg are at risk of poverty, and inquiries to the social counseling service at Caritas have risen sharply, they say. The Catholic aid organization expects many more inquiries because of the constantly rising cost of living and energy. The donations from the house collection are used for the own region.
Caritas has already founded other projects for the Ukraine crisis, as director Johannes Dines describes: “We are considering internally how we can react to a refugee movement. We also want to help in the Ukraine ourselves and have been working intensively there for a long time.”
Caritas is looking for more volunteers for the Heurige house collection.