• Thousands of volunteers seek donations of basic foodstuffs in 4th annual drive
• Annual collection effort strives to alleviate hunger over Spain’s holiday season
The nationwide Spanish Federation of Food Banks (Federación Española de Bancos de Alimentos, FESBAL) has announced the launch on Friday of its yearly holiday food drive, the fourth annual Gran Recogida de Alimentos, to collect sufficient quantities of foodstuffs to stock volunteer food banks nationwide and help alleviate hunger in Spain through the holiday season.
According to FESBAL, the year-end holiday season is when the organisation’s 55 affiliated food banks are are at their lowest levels throughout the year and the two-day food drive this weekend (three days in Madrid and other select parts of the country) is crucial to supplying the centers with adequate basic foodstuffs to ensure that Spanish families have enough to eat through the New Year.
This year’s Grand Recogida campaign, under the slogan “Small Gestures that Give Life” ( Pequeños gestos que dan vida) will see some 110,000 volunteers nationwide at supermarkets, neighborhood grocery stores, schools and universities, public and private institutions asking shoppers to donate part of their food purchases to Spain’s food banks to help alleviate hunger over the holidays.
According to FESBAL, volunteers working in the third annual food drive in 2015 collected some 22 million kilos of food, an increase of 5 percent over the amount collected in 2014, and distributed the foodstuffs to more than 1.6 million people.
► ► CLICK ABOVE TO WATCH ‘LA GRAN RECOGIDA 2016’ VIDEO ► ►
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