We traveled around WORLD in search of beautiful and generous initiatives to warm up such a special Christmas. Small gestures to give and to receive. To feel that each of us is able to make a difference
- Buy a dinner or a cooking class
- Leave a lunch suspended
- Accompanying other people’s children to school
- Pay for a suspended tampon
- Buy a ticket to the cinema
- Support the Italian Environment Fund
- Donate a percentage of your income
- Support small booksellers
- Call the delivery that hires the riders
- Choose the Vermouth that helps Italian wineries
The pandemic has made us all more fragile. But it also led us to reflect on how much each of us can make a difference in the lives of others, on how much we want and need warmth and closeness. At a time when the virus puts certainties, health, finances at risk, every gesture of solidarity makes us stronger. It becomes an inner fuel, awakens our energies, overcomes every sense of loneliness and tiredness: whoever receives it, but also whoever does it, feels anew that everything is possible.
A Parma family hard hit by Covid knows this well, first with two deaths, then with an illness that seems endless. “All three of us caught the coronavirus, my wife, my 13-year-old daughter and myself. We have been in isolation for three weeks and we have had a hard time with high fever and bilateral pneumonia »says Fabrizio, 46, from Parma. “To break down the fear of not making it, the anguish that something would go for the worst was the solidarity contest of our friends, colleagues and relatives who every day loaded pasta in broth, sea bass, focaccia, drugs on our lift and books. When you fear you will need to go to hospital, every act of kindness makes you feel closer to “returning to the world”. I thank everyone because nothing is more difficult than being isolated ».
It is the power of the network, of feeling part of a community where everyone works for the same important goal . And it is the feeling that inspired the protagonists of the 10 acts of solidarity that we tell you here.
Buy a dinner or a cooking class
Chefs and restaurateurs are supported with vouchers that can be purchased on lovebond.it. In the photo, Marco Ambrosino of the Milanese restaurant 28 seats.
Restaurants are closed but there are many ways to support your favorite place. On the lovebond.it website, for example, you can find vouchers at special prices for gourmand dinners to be consumed next year (but there are also stays in resorts and holiday homes): you can keep them for yourself or put them under the Christmas tree.
Another brilliant idea to help restaurateurs is the Advent calendar created by Italia keeps on cooking with Eataly: 24 online cooking lessons with as many Italian chefs. Participants will receive at home the Christmas box with the ingredients of the recipe (from 30 euros, alessiarizzetto.com/italia-keeps-on-cooking). The parterre of the chefs includes, among others, Marco Ambrosino, Cristina Bowerman and Luigi Taglienti. “The project was born to offer them concrete support,” says the creator Alessia Rizzetto. The enthusiasm with which it was received reveals how much the chefs want to get involved. One of the chefs, Giancarlo Perbellini, has decided to donate the proceeds to charity: doing good generates other good ».
Leave a lunch suspended
In the heart of Ballarò, the multi-ethnic district of Palermo , there is the Moltivolti social enterprise : 28 people who come from 10 countries and who manage a restaurant and a coworking. “Professionals and workers come to us for lunch, categories that experience the crisis differently” says Claudio Arestivo, co-founder member. «This is why we decided to offer customers a fiduciary asset: when paying the bill they decide whether to leave it unchanged, whether to add 20% or to remove it. Our goal is to build a community based on the bond of trust: 70% of customers have chosen to pay more. A videomaker accepted the discount because Covid brought her to her knees.Now the restaurant is closed, but we prepare 50 meals a day for the refugees of the neighborhood : those who want to support us can buy one for 5 euros ([email protected]). People who live in other regions have read about us and bought suspended lunches ».
Accompanying other people’s children to school
In the morning they prepare the folder, reach the pedibus stop by themselves and go to school together accompanied by two or three parents, spaced out and with masks. It is the experience, to be copied, that 25 children of the Don Milani school in Vimercate (Mb) have been experiencing since September. After a summer of meetings to understand how to avoid crowds in front of schools and help parents left without pre-school due to the pandemic, the Allegripedi service has started and has mapped the city, creating three routes with established stops and times. “It is an initiative that has social value for those who have to reconcile smartworking, child management, daily commitments” explains Daniela Ferdeghini, one of the promoting parents. «In the morning it is easier to keep the distance. Children make friends and experience autonomy ».
Pay for a suspended tampon
After the coffee, the suspended tampon also arrives in Naples . To propose it are the Community Foundation of San Gennaro Onlus and SaDiSa, with pharmacy Mele and Third Municipality. Every day, at the basilica of San Severo in Capodimonte, a hundred tests are carried out for 18 euros each. Anyone who wants to donate one can do so by bank transfer and the reason for “suspended buffer.
Buy a ticket to the cinema
The screening rooms are closed but you can see the latest releases and together support your favorite cinema. On the iorestoinsala.it site, the customer chooses the film in the cinema he prefers (there are 51, from Lombardy to Calabria), buys the ticket (from 3 to 7.90 euros), receives a link and… enjoy! “We also offer the public conversations with directors and actors and visits to virtual exhibitions. Cinemas are social presences, cultural outposts capable of attracting people with similar tastes. And, never as now, it is important to keep the mind alive and curiosity alight », says Lionello Cerri, soul of Anteo in Milan.
The lockdown gave rise to a deep desire for Italy in everyone’s heart. For months we have been missing landscapes and monuments. And the FAI, which enhances the heritage of art and nature of our country, had to close assets and cancel events. This year, for Christmas, you can give your membership card to help the Fund continue its work and return to see the treasures of the beautiful country (from 20 to 66 euros.
Donate a percentage of your income
It happened in Pavia: 141 people self-taxed themselves and since May they have raised 82,000 euros to help those affected by the crisis. The project is called Nobody Saves Alone and involves private individuals and associations from the secular and Catholic world who have donated a percentage of their income. “We can no longer call ourselves out,” explains Daniela Bonanni, a retired teacher involved. «This initiative can be replicated neighborhood by neighborhood, where people and their needs are known. It is a sign of trust: together we can do it ». The funds raised will be managed by Caritas Pavia.
Support small booksellers
Bookdealer is the e-commerce that gathers 600 independent bookstores in Italy , offers them a showcase and the possibility of reaching new customers (in the photo on the left, the Blue Room bookcase). “Booksellers have no registration costs nor do they give margins on sales: everyone has a profile where they recommend reading paths,” says Livia Del Pino, commercial manager of bookdealer.it. “The customer pays an extra amount for the delivery, but here he finds booksellers in flesh and blood and can buy boxes with surprise titles”.
Call the delivery that hires the riders
300 cities, 950 restaurants and, above all, 700 riders hired under collaboration contracts. These are the numbers of Alfonsino, the food delivery born in Caserta (alfonsino.delivery). “That of hiring the riders is a choice that goes against the trend: they have paid contributions, they earn a fixed fee for the shift plus a sum for each delivery, they receive clothes and a thermal backpack” says Dario Rauccio, senior marketing manager. «They are our contact with the outside world: if they work in quiet conditions, it shows. And we want to hire another 3,000 by the end of 2022 ».
Choose the Vermouth that helps Italian wineries
Due to lockdown 54 million hectoliters of wine remained unsold in Italian wineries. To use a part of it, Fenice 2020 was born, the Vermouth obtained with a blend of 20 products that come from as many wineries, one for each Region. The name testifies to the desire to start again, the label is by the illustrator Paolo Armitano.
