The 40th Restos du coeur campaign starts this week in the 11 centers in the department. After a difficult year (the number of meals served fell by 34% due to the association's financial difficulties), the financial situation is improving and the scales are becoming more flexible.
“In 2023, we had to tighten the screws… The association was in difficulty, we welcomed a little fewer people due to less favorable scales,” regrets Aline Rivière, president of the Aveyron branch of the association. An “artificial” drop according to her, because the needs were always the same, but a very significant drop.
Starting with the number of meals distributed: 386,593 between March 15 and October 31, 2024 compared to, for the same period in 2023, 585,395 meals distributed. That’s a drop of 34%. As for the families welcomed, the drop is “only” 9.4% with a total of 2,253 families followed.
This week starts the winter campaign for Restaurants. It will last until March 15 and represents an important step: “This allows us to see families again, to reassess their resources,” explains the president. With good news for beneficiaries: “Finances have returned to balance and the scales will become more flexible,” announces Aline Rivière.
Three “targets” for this new campaign
For this new campaign, the Restos de l'Aveyron have three “targets”, as the president explains: single-parent families, poorly housed people (now with more advantageous scales for these two categories) but also babies. There, the criteria were also revised with reception for 0-36 months compared to 0-18 months previously.
This is the 40th campaign for Restos du coeur. The first, in 1985, mobilized 5,000 volunteers in some 600 distribution points and served 8.5 million meals free of charge. The 39th campaign, in 2023-2024, recorded 163 million, almost twenty times more, thanks to the dedication of 75,000 regular volunteers, and 30,000 occasional ones, in 2,348 reception sites.
At the national level, single-parent families currently represent almost a quarter of the people welcomed and almost half of the beneficiaries are under 25 years old.
How to help Restos du coeur?
“We are always looking for volunteers, especially for collections,” says Aline Rivière. “As for distributions, we are generally well equipped. On the other hand, we would like the reinforcement of volunteers with skills, for the search for patronage, assistance with treasury, in terms of communication or organization of events” . To the wise!
