New premises for Alimentos Solidarios Torrevieja

ALIMENTOS SOLIDARIOS Torrevieja is one of  Torrevieja’s newest and most needed Charity associations. They are an independent social catering charity who provide daily cooked takeaway meals for needy local families, along with supplying them with such necessary items as non perishable foodstuffs, cooking oil, milk plus items for babies and children, so they can fend for themselves.

Since their inception, charity volunteers have been cooking meals at the CDT Centre, transporting them a few hundred metres along the street to the headquarters of the Protection Civil, where around 100 families benefited daily through being presented with a cooked meal which they then took home to their family.

Hearing of their plight, and to show their support for the efforts of the charity, Torrevieja’s Social Services department donated new premises to the charity, which is located on the corner of Calle Apolo and San Pascual, just outside the city centre. The location is more central for many needy residents. Last Monday evening, Torrevieja’s Mayor, Pedro Hernández Mateo, in the company of Lola Canales, councillor for Social Welfare, Deputy Mayor Eduardo Dolon and many Town Councillors, attended the inauguration ceremony.

Along with local councillors and volunteers from Alimentos Solidarios Torrevieja, over a hundred guests were present to see the new facility for themselves. Guests included members of the press, local business people, sponsors and fundraising groups. After the welcoming speeches, parish priest Don Manuel Martínez Rocamora blessed the facility and led the tour of the kitchens and storerooms while organisers explained the main functions of the charity.

Due to pure logistics, the charity have only been able to cater for 100 families but the new facilities, with its larger kitchen and storeroom all in the one place, now allows them to service up to about 300 visitors daily.

The new facility features a professional kitchen, meeting area, distribution room, storeroom and toilets. Pedro Hernandez Mateo said that it was “unfortunate that such a facility was needed but that he was happy that the Town Hall could help Alimentos Solidarios Torrevieja with their work and that in these times of crisis, that everyone should be grateful of their existence, just in case one’s circumstances changed and one needed their assistance.”

Church secretary for the La Siesta Evangelical Church, Fiona Cook, who was also instrumental with a ‘toys for tots’ program at Christmas, said that Church members were 100 percent behind the charity and that they would continue to offer their support through donations, fund raising events and even offered volunteer help with cooking and distribution of the meals.

A cheque for €180 was also handed over on the night to Charity members Concha Sala and Domingo Paredes by Joan and Robert Simpson, the outgoing President of the Rocajuna Golf Society. They raised the money through donations from members who made a ‘blob’, a mistake or two, on the society’s golf outings.

By Keith Nicol