FOOD AID TO THE POOR IN BILBAO

Nowadays, there are millions of poor people in the world. Society usually thinks that poor people are just in Africa or Asia..., but poverty is closer than what we think. Indigents are next to our house's doors, they live with us. I'm talking about homeless people, those who don't have even for food. To deal with this situation and help to indigents of our city (Bilbao), our school carries out two activities: On the one hand, it is organised a food bank where every students and teachers can bring food to donate it. On the other hand, there are some days during the year in which there´s a voluntary work after school for those students who really want to help (just for 4º Eso and Bachillerato).

During this month, in our school, we have been doing a food bank for the Irala’s soup kitchen. The most important food we have to bring is for breakfast and basic products, like milk, eggs, rice etc… In our school, we also do every two or three months, a food bank called ‘’kilo’’, where we collect food for the same food kitchen.

Two of us went to the soup kitchen, so each of us is going to tell you our personal experience:

Marina's experience

The first thing we did when we arrived, was talk with the volunteers that were there. They were very kind and friendly; they  solved us all the doubts we had, and explained us what we were going to do. 

First, they gave us an apron and we set the table. Secondly,  the homeless arrived. They ate the first plate, and we had to ask them wether they wanted to repeat or not. If not, we had to serve them the second plate. Finally, most of them left with a smile in their face, expressing gratitude.

It  surprised me  that most of them were always smiling at us; I reckon that is very hard, considering that most of them are homeless people, that live around the streets,  they don´t have a home, maybe they don´t have  family… I don´t know how their lives are, but I'm sure that not an easy one. It was amazing to see them smiling. I would really like to know all of their stories. It also surprised me that the physical appearance of the indigents. I thought that they were going to have scruffy and untidy clothes. And that is true, but there were also many people that was wearing normal clothes. If saw those people on the street, I’d never think that they have bad economical situations. It is amazing that they have to eat in soup kitchens in order to maintain a house and a family.

In summary, the experience made me reflect and think of other people's  situations. It also made me feel better with myself.

Pilar's experience

Firstly, my friend and I arrived to the soup kitchen.  We didn’t know what to do or tell. We were nervous. Thank god, the veteran volunteers were very kind and welcomed us very kindly. They told us what to do: first, we had to put on an apron; next put the plates on the table; and finally, serve the plates with food. Followed, the indigents arrived. We waited there until they finished the first dish and we asked them if they wanted to repeat. If they didn’t want to, we just had to take the plate and serve the second dish. In general, they were polite and they usually thanked us.

Judging by the appearance, there were all kind of people. We saw from the poorest people from Bilbao to good looking people, with a similar appearance to our parent’s. Despite being poor people, most of them were really nice to us and well-mannered. The 90% of them were immigrants.

What I’ve learnt from this experience is that even people with the most normal appearance can have such economical issues to have the need to go to these soup kitchens. You never know what kind of problems a person can have. This involvement has also taught me how fortunate I am, and how near people with not a single resource are. It is very easy for us to help them. I surly recommend this kind of “activity” and I have no doubt that I’ll repeat it.

If you are interested, here you’ve got the pamphlet of the soup kitchen we went to.