Food Aid Takes Off In Athens: When Help is Literally Just Around the Corner

Eating Well Is The Best Revenge

by Diana Farr Louis

ATHENS Greece—(Weekly Hubris)—3/19/12—Did you know that one in eleven residents of greater Athens visits a soup kitchen daily?

That’s about 400,000 people, a figure unthinkable a year ago. And after the tragic events that accompanied the Greek Parliament’s vote on the night of 12 February to adopt even harsher austerity measures, the lines for free food will probably grow longer.

A common response to a problem of this magnitude might be to donate some cash to a charity or to leave a bagful of staples—rice, pasta, canned tomatoes, for example—in the new bins for the hungry at the exit to your supermarket after you’ve done your own shopping.

For most of us, that would be enough.

But last May, a young woman had an idea that sent her to her computer instead of flopping exhausted into bed after her younger son’s third birthday party. Why not create a network linking organizations that need food with those that have too much: bakeries, tavernas, hotels, fast food chains . . . ?

“These are untapped resources,” said Xenia Papastavrou, who was brought up in Athens and studied in Britain. “Take the average bakery. They throw out as much as 30 kilos of bread every evening, but this must hurt. The employees have been up since 5 a.m. making it. If you tell them there’s a soup kitchen just three minutes away that would welcome it, they’ll be thrilled to give it to them.”

Xenia set up a website that May evening, and called it “Boroume,” which means “We Can.” “I wanted just one word, a verb, that would be positive and proactive,” she said.

But then summer came, and the project did not take off until late October, when the influential Kathimerini newspaper ran a story about a bakery in a working-class district of Athens that, thanks to Boroume, had begun donating bread to a soup kitchen run by the local church.

Immediately, offers poured in—from a taverna in the wealthy neighborhood of Kolonaki, from a big baked goods chain, from green grocers in the wholesale market of Rendi, from caterers with leftovers from weddings and baptisms—and were directed to orphanages, old age homes, halfway houses for the handicapped, and soup kitchens run by churches and municipalities all over the Athens area.

“Now we have about 218 members,” said Xenia, “institutions that we work with, but we don’t want to boast about numbers, though they’re growing every day. We supply the connections—all it takes is a phone call or email—and hope they’ll become automatic. Once they’re introduced, givers and receivers can deal directly with each other.”

Xenia knew where the needy were located because of her work as a volunteer for the Food Bank, founded in 1995 by Gerasimos Vassilopoulos, head of a prominent chain of supermarkets.

“When I came back from London in ‘99,” she said when we met at an all-day café in one of Athens’s northern suburbs, “I knew I wanted to get involved with a charity. I could have joined a society to save the sea turtles or the bears but, instead, I chose food, because it’s so basic. Without it, we can’t survive. But the Food Bank only deals with dry goods, nothing fresh or perishable, no fruit or vegetables, and that’s where Boroume can fill the gap. And, at the same time, reduce the waste.”

As Boroume gathered momentum, through Facebook in addition to the press, Xenia and her two partners, Alexandros Theodoridis and Alexia Moatsou, hired another ten volunteers in their tiny office to help coordinate the daily movements of food around Attica. “We wanted to have the maximum effect with the least cost, so we found a way to have the welfare organizations pick up the food. themselves. Soon we’ll be posting a map pinpointing their locations on our website, and individuals will be able to take food to them without contacting us.”

On the day we met in early February, Xenia was beaming with Boroume’s latest successes. “We got a donation of 400 cartons of orange juice from CocaCola and the offer of six portions of fish soup from a woman named Margarita in Halandri. She sent an sms on Sunday night but I was able to put her in touch with an old age home close by. No offer is too small to turn down.

“We’re also branching out. We’ve just signed an agreement with the 40-member Attica Hotel Owners Association. We’re going way beyond the distribution of surplus meals. They’ve got old furniture and refrigerators our institutions can use, and furthermore, they’re even going to cook meals especially for some of them.”

As more and more people get involved, clusters of support form in neighborhoods, reviving the traditionally close social ties that urban anonymity discouraged. Ironically, by “friending” Boroume, Athenians discover aspects of their own communities they hadn’t noticed.

“Our approach allows donors to see where their gifts are going. They don’t enter a general pool or an impersonal bank account. We’re breaking down barriers of shyness and awkwardness and replacing them with instant gratification on both sides. Both givers and receivers are happy.”

But what about the shame factor? The formerly well-off men and women who are reduced to poverty but are mortified to admit it?

To reach them, Boroume works with the social services of the various municipalities (“which are doing an excellent job”) and the churches. With their networks of volunteers, they deliver food to individuals who can’t bring themselves to go to soup kitchens.

Over the last few weeks, Boroume seems to be moving into yet another dimension. “Once an institution does not have to worry about basics,” said Xenia, “it can free up its funds for other uses. Like piano lessons for a talented child in a home for abused kids.

“We’re starting to link up people with a special expertise. For example, a hairdresser went to a shelter for 15 girls and cut their hair for free. Can you imagine how good they all felt? An American friend is going to teach gym classes at a center in Agia Paraskevi, another guy is going to give tutoring in math, while a third may give cooking lessons. We do need cooks to volunteer their services.”

Every day, Boroume posts their latest news on Facebook. Today, I learned that Veneti, a big bakery chain, has added a girls’ orphanage in Ekali to the list of institutions that receive day-old bread and other baked goods; that 14-year-old Georgia in Miami wants to start a drive in the Greek community there to help out; and that volunteers are needed to sort through the huge piles of clothes donated to the Archdiocese in Athens.

“Numbers make us feel helpless, but we try to think small so people are not dismayed by the enormity of the problem.”

I’m reminded of Margaret Mead’s classic words: “Don’t think that a small group of awakened individuals cannot change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Boroume is not restricted to Athens. They are also setting up networks in Patras, Thessaloniki, and elsewhere. For more information, go to www.boroume.gr (Home Page in English). The organization expects to be granted NGO status any day now. At the moment, Papastavrou and all its employees are volunteers in addition to holding regular jobs.

Recipe

I don’t know what kind of fish soup Kyria Margarita of Halandri offered to the hungry elderly in her neighborhood, but here’s a delicious recipe for the kind that Greek fishermen prefer. It’s called kakkavia, after the pot (kakkavi) they cook it in, and has none of the usual additions, such as celery, carrots, and herbs, which would turn it into a more gentrified psarosoupa. The large amount of olive oil called for combined with fast boiling makes the soup extremely rich and creamy. I find Margarita’s act noble and generous. I’m not sure that I’d be willing to share this.

 

1 grouper, 1 kg (2 lbs) or more

240 ml (1 cup) olive oil

3-4 onions, sliced

2-3 potatoes, cubed

salt and freshly ground pepper

juice of 3-4 lemons

 

Heat the oil in a large soup kettle and wilt the onions in it. Add 2 liters (8 cups) of water and boil rapidly for 10 minutes. Add the potatoes, cook another 10 minutes, and then add the fish. Boil rapidly for another 10 or 15 minutes, partially covered. Pour in the lemon juice, cover, turn off the heat, and let stand for 10 minutes. If you decide to eat the fish and leave the broth for another day, it will turn to jelly within an hour. Serves 6.