the “One Meal a Day” event is back
The volunteers of the Pope John XXIII Community, founded by Don Benzi in 1968, return to the squares of San Marin to show how solidarity is the effective response against the new forms of poverty generating from and global crises An absolute poverty rate in Italy that is confirmed close to of historical peaks in 2020. The hopes of the post-pandemic recovery that remain to clash with the new difficulties and with those of all time. And going beyond the borders, a world that seems to have forgotten the hard lessons of the past, as can be seen from the conflict in Ukraine and the new national tensions that do not fail to scan the days. If there is one lesson that history teaches us, it is how much difference an approach based on solidarity and a sense of community can make. Values that the Pope John XXIII Community, founded in 1968 by Don Oreste Benzi, has always placed at the center of its commitment, through projects and reception realities in Italy and in 40 countries around the world, and with a constant presence also in Ukraine since very first days of the conflict. With the aim of sharing the awareness and results gained during these experiences, and to carry out awareness-raising work on issues that are important for the future of each individual, the Community volunteers will also return this year to the squares of San Marino on the 17th. September 18 with the solidarity initiative “A Meal a Day”, an event that adds a precious objective to the work of raising awareness that becomes concrete and decisive for many people in situations of great difficulty: through initiatives like this, in fact, the Community gathers around itself that support that allows it to guarantee 7 and a half million meals every year to people in poverty and in difficulty that it welcomes in its homes, canteens and aid organizations. «We have experienced a phase in which the modern world has been called into question – explained the president of the Community, Giovanni Ramonda -, with the pandemic, the end of peace in our European continent, the climate emergency. The consequences of each of these events have overturned our way of experiencing presence, priorities, relationships, places. The only way to overcome these changes is by starting a “constructive” phase, where the whole world seeks the way of rebirth. Building is the verb of awareness, of doing, a verb in the future, which speaks of a tomorrow that begins today, it is the verb of hope. A simple and fundamental concept, on which the essence of the Community is based, which in the face of injustice, poverty, marginalization has been working for over 50 years to build the sense of capable community, which is fundamental for that community. each other, to find and answer for those who had lost everything. Today, faced with the social emergency we are witnessing, we want to build a table where there is room for everyone ». Faced with these figures, initiatives such as “A Meal a Day” become important not only for the resources that manage to collect a point, but also because they offer a new point of view, through which everyone can make a small difference and build something. which becomes great. Precisely for this reason the organizers have chosen as the claim of this edition “Let’s build a table where there is room for everyone”. And like every year, there will be a small symbolic gesture: the volunteers of the Community, in fact, will distribute a booklet with seven prayers in seven different languages to those who take part in the event. A way to underline even more how much a community can and must be felt, and how much this can mark a real turning point in the lives of many people who are most in need.