Commissioning of the first Social Pantry began in Puente Alto

In total, there will be more than two thousand elderly residents who will be part of this initiative that seeks to help in the nutrition and basic services of the beneficiaries, delivering food baskets week by week.

“I think it is a great initiative because we are in a very bad situation and everything that comes is useful. With my pension I buy gas, pay for electricity, water and I don’t have enough to eat. Almost all of us are doing bad, we are very poor, because it is not enough, everything is much more expensive. This is a relief, a great help for the elderly”, says Isabel Godoy, a resident of the Puente Alto district.

Like Isabel, there will be 2,500 residents in that district who will receive weekly baskets of food and basic necessities thanks to the Social Pantry, an initiative that this week began its commissioning in Puente Alto with the first 1,000 people who signed up at the start of the process, in April this year. This project seeks to be a solution in the malnutrition and feeding of the elderly in the district.

Along with Isabel, many people came to look for their food box. One of them was Nancy Acevedo, who after leaving the Social Pantry explained: “When they called me, I didn’t believe it, this is a blessing. Now I will have juices, chocolates, cookies. Sometimes there is not enough to buy more than what I have, because I arrive just right and I have not enough to buy the rest. My brother tells me ‘you won the lottery with the district and the pantry'”.

The Social Pantry still has places available for residents of Puente Alto to register, since there will be a total of 2,500 beneficiaries. To apply, the requirements are: to live in Puente Alto, be over 60 years old and earn less than the minimum wage.

To register, people can go to the headquarters of the Social Pantry, located at José Luis Coo 860, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. In that place they must show their identity card, a document that proves their address and another that proves the income they receive.

The initiative works from Monday to Friday, at the time established for each beneficiary. In addition to the delivery of products, the Social Pantry will offer support to the solution of common social problems in the beneficiaries of the program.

“It is really worth it, because all the things are of very good quality. This is going to affect me for the better in my day to day, since we are living only on our pensions. It gives us joy that older adults care about us, we thank the people who cared to do this,” said Juan Carlos Cabrales, a resident of Puente Alto.

María Eugenia Torres, general manager of the Food Network, highlighted the importance of this initiative for the Corporation and commented that “we are very happy to be able to help, above all, elderly people in the community, with an income below the minimum wage and who have problems to make ends meet and even nutritional problems. That is why we deliver food with a strong focus on fruits and vegetables, so that they can improve their nutrition and quality of life.”

In the mean time, from CMPC, the deputy manager of Public Affairs Francisco Torrealba explained: “We are very happy with this start of the Social Pantry trial and we hope that the experience of the benefited neighbors will be better and better and that we will be able to provide them with more and more tools so that they improve their quality of life, especially the diet in which we have currently seen how inflation has affected so many pockets. We are eager for this initiative to work 100% soon, reach 2,500 beneficiaries and generate a permanent change in the lives of the neighbors.”

The alliance

Food network, the first Food Bank in Chile, and CMPC have developed a sustainable model since 2010 that rescues food and essential items that are no longer marketable, subsequently delivering them to social organizations that serve people in vulnerable situations. Thanks to this model, more than 56 million kilos of food and basic necessities have been rescued.

To develop this project, food network has rescued products, sending them from its distribution center in San Bernardo to the new Pantry located in CMPC’s facilities in Puente Alto.