The Food Bank's Grand Collection is three weeks early and is seeking 14,000 volunteers.
"We give it our all" is this year's motto, which aims to highlight the contribution that each person can make to the campaign.
BarcelonaThe Banc dels Aliments, which represents Catalonia's food banks, presented this Thursday a new edition of the Gran Recapte (Great Collection), which aims to collect food to cover the needs of 230,000 vulnerable people. This time, the collection is three weeks earlier than usual and will take place over the weekend of November 7 and 8, with a dual approach: product donations from supermarkets and financial contributions.
The goal for this year is to exceed the 1,500 tons of food collected in the previous edition, which will subsequently be used by some 500 social organizations to distribute among the most vulnerable population. Despite the positive macroeconomic outlook, poverty remains at very high rates, with one in four Catalans struggling to meet their basic needs.
In order to carry out the Great Collection, the organization is calling for 14,000 volunteers, who will be distributed among more than 2,000 collection points across the country (8,000 in Barcelona, 2,500 in Girona, 2,500 in large and 1,300 in Tarragona, 1,300 in Tarragona). Registration to become a volunteer is now open through the website www.granrecapte.org.
The campaign's slogan is "We Give It All," which seeks to emphasize that any contribution, no matter how small, is essential to guarantee decent food for everyone. In the 2024 campaign, more than €6 million was collected in food and financial donations. This made it possible to cover some of the needs of the organizations collaborating with the Banc dels Aliments for two months and to purchase fresh produce, which has become more expensive due to inflation. In addition to collecting food with donations, one of the objectives of the Gran Recapte is to raise public awareness about the poverty crisis and bring the issue into public debate, as well as to underline the need to collaborate with the Banc dels Aliments throughout the year.
At the presentation of this new edition, Carme Casacuberta, president of the Banc dels Aliments de Girona, highlighted the importance of volunteering: "In supermarkets where there are volunteers, we collect twice as much food as in places where there aren't."