Toledo.- The subdelegate of the Government in Toledo, Carlos Ángel Devia, visited this morning the headquarters of the Food Bank, which since the beginning of this week has begun to distribute to its Distribution Organizations (OARs), food aid from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, through the Spanish Agricultural Guarantee Fund (FEGA), within the framework of the Food Aid Program of the European Aid Fund for the Most Disadvantaged People.
The deputy delegate of the Government has been received by the president of the Food Bank of Toledo, Manuel Lanza, and by the volunteer staff that is carrying out during these days the distribution of food aid to the 76 entities that have registered in the province of Toledo as Distribution Organizations (OARs).
Carlos Ángel Devia reiterated that “the commitment of the Government of Spain to provide food aid to the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people remains in place and also with very important funds”.
“So far this year we have served some 19,000 families in the province of Toledo with this food aid, but the important thing,” he added, “apart from that work to support those families in need, is that I want to put a great value on the work that volunteers do.”
In this regard, the Government’s deputy delegate has made a public appeal to the idea of volunteering in Spain. “I think,” he said, “we have to do an important job, and a good example of this is the work done by the volunteers at the Food Bank.”
In this first phase, the Food Bank of Toledo plans to distribute, from the European Aid Fund for the Most Disadvantaged (FEAD), a total of 123,778 kilos of food products, worth more than 200,000 euros.
In this way, the organization estimates that in this first phase it will be able to care for 1,989 disadvantaged families in the province, which will result in 6,754 beneficiaries, of which 341 are infants.
The food that is distributed has been selected based on the EU-recommended diet, basic, varied, nutritious, unperishable and easily transported and stored foods: white rice, cooked chickpeas, canned tuna, alimentary paste, canned pork lean, fried tomato, biscuits, preserved vegetable macedonia, soluble cocoa and childish fruit and chicken, and it is planned to incorporate olive oil in the second phase of distribution, scheduled for the month of September.
Food is distributed free of charge to the most disadvantaged people, through the Distribution Organizations, meaning the most disadvantaged people, individuals, families, households or groups who are in a situation of economic poverty, as well as the homeless and other people in a situation of special social vulnerability.
The Government of Spain will distribute around 15 million kilos of food throughout the national territory, of which 247,555 kilos correspond to the province of Toledo. In this program, the Food Bank and the Red Cross participate as the only two Storage and Distribution Centers (CAD) authorized in the province of Toledo
The purchase of food by the FEGA for this program has been carried out through two public tender processes worth 88,571,420 million euros (VAT not included) for the whole of Spain, financed in full by the Recovery and Resilience Fund, which has been used to increase support for the European Fund for Disadvantaged People (FEAD), in order to help those who have been most affected by the COVID-19 crisis.