Volunteers from the Food Bank will be on Friday and Saturday, or even Sunday morning, in supermarkets in Haute-Loire to collect essential foodstuffs.
A few days before the 40th major collection of the Haute-Loire Food Bank, its president has only one fear: that “external events (agricultural demonstrations in particular) will pollute this moment of sharing in favor of the most poor”, scheduled for Friday and Saturday, or even Sunday morning, in nearly 70 stores in the department.
For the rest, Jean-Marie Guerault is confident. The human chain is now well oiled. Forty years that the Food Bank has been mobilizing volunteers to collect food. This year again, there will be “nearly 650” at the entrances to supermarkets, behind the wheel of trucks or in the warehouses of Cussac-sur-Loire, Paulhaguet and Monistrol-sur-Loire. Jean-Marie Guerault also knows that “Haute-Loire is a generous department”, that its inhabitants “have heart”. It has to be.
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In 2023, he recalls, for the first time since its creation, the Food Bank found itself obliged to purchase canned goods, pasta or even rice itself, in order “to compensate for the decline of foodstuffs” supplied via the European Fund for Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD), one of its main sources of supply. And again in 2024. At the same time, needs are evolving on the rise. “There is a shortage, it’s concrete,” certifies Jean-Marie Guerault.
In this context, the association, this “wholesaler” of food aid, has great hope in its annual collection. Its president hopes it will be “great”. Last year, it made it possible to collect some “40 tonnes of products”, half of which were in the Puy-en-Velay sector alone. Enough to cover “20 to 25% of [ses] needs”. Or rather those of charitable associations, solidarity grocery stores and municipal social action centers (CCAS), these “great witnesses of poverty in Haute-Loire”, to which food is redistributed throughout the year. This is good, but insufficient when we know that at least 160 tonnes of products are needed to supply the fifty structures and their beneficiaries who rely on the aid provided by the Food Bank. Pasta, rice, canned goods, ready meals, flour, coffee, breakfasts or hygiene products (toothpaste, shampoo, soap, etc.)… this weekend, Altiligerians are invited to fill their neighbor's baskets.
Support. On Monday, the Haute-Loire Food Bank renewed the agreement which binds it to GrDF, in its premises in Cussac-sur-Loire. The gas distributor, represented by its territorial delegate, Pierre-Anthony Jabot, has provided financial support for several years. “This allows us,” said Jean-Marie Guerault, president of the Food Bank, “to pay operating costs: insurance, diesel, electricity bill, etc. »
Ophélie Crémillieux
