Harold Hunter's Re-food non-profit anti-hunger project

REFOOD ORG

Today I bring to my blog a social issue. I worked as a social worker for several years so I am sensitive to these kinds of actions. Harold Hunter is an American and he lives in Lisbon. Watch him collecting food from restaurants and riding his bike on Lisbon streets. He and all volunteers use a bike to deliver food. Yes, as he says, hunger on the streets of Lisbon, unlike Africa's hunger, hurts the spirit more than the belly. He has sixty volunteers. The man in the white shirt was homeless so he knows where the needy people live and has an important role in the project. The woman with a fur coat once had a good life but before this help arrived she and her kids were eating just rice and pasta for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They adequate food for each person's type, food for the young is different from food for the old people. If people don't want to give their name because they are ashamed of their condition they respect that.Lots of dignity and solidarity in this action and an example that can be implemented in any city, in Portugal, or in the world.


Re-food is the name of the project. It's a non-profit project, founded as an instrument to facilitate the redirection of unserved left-over food to hungry people. Re-food is not looking for monetary donations. All they seek is volunteers and material. The project aims to reduce hunger in urban environments by redirecting un-served, left-over food directly to the hungry people closest to the donating sources.


The project seeks to enlist local "sources" of prepared meals and secure their daily "over-production" to be delivered immediately to hungry people in the same locale who do not have the means to purchase food. Creating a "human bridge" that will connect those who have a daily surplus with those who have a daily need is the primary function of the re-food team - collecting and delivering by bicycle each day.
The project was developed in Lisbon, Portugal in 2010. Only in early 2011, it was realized that that work had already been done - by António Costa Pereira who singlehandedly moved the status quo to a new and, we hope, receptive attitude. Everyone is talking about Re-food and chances are that many will join to help. Portugal faces troubled times and in the short future, many will need this precious help that feeds not only the body but also hope.