‘Alma Libre a lifestyle’, reads the slogan of a project “that revolves around human service”, defines Camila Barrios, one of the founders. From the first moment of the Coronavirus crisis, he looked for “formulas to help and contribute, but everything was very closed and there was no option for help from abroad.” Until # Food4heroes appeared.
For the first deliveries, they prepared between 12/15 rations per hospital and distributed to 2-3 hospitals. Now, with the collaboration of more restaurants and companies, they take to a single hospital, weekly and always at noon, but their contribution exceeds 250 servings in the # Food4heroes campaign.
“We are a healthy option because we are vegetarians, almost vegans and we prepare quality homemade food such as hummus, stew, vegetables, legumes, wraps …”, Barrios lists. Because of their concern and their desire to help, “at the beginning we made the distribution ourselves through volunteers and we precisely miss the contact with the restrooms, the feedback, because that contact is what makes us happy,” he stresses. Now, that distribution is the responsibility of the Post Office.
They usually deliver three times a week: Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. The restaurant remains open with home delivery, but “it is the excuse to prepare the deliveries of # Food4heroes, since we barely generate to maintain costs,” Camila explains.
Four restaurants
The Açaí Alma Libre restaurant in Valencia, the first of the four that the group has, was in full Fallas for five years. “We couldn’t celebrate it.” Then came Barcelona, Granada and Miami, this one as a franchise. In addition, they import açaí, a Brazilian fruit.
The team is made up of more than 30 people. “We are a family because most of us are from other countries, we are away from home and we try to help each other, so it was easy for us to join the # Food4heroes project,” says this Argentine based in Valencia.
Indeed, in addition to preparing rations for # Food4heroes, they participate in the # AguaparahospitalesCOVID19 initiative of the Auara Foundation, by which they donate 1 euro for each bottle of water sold, which is transformed into 5 liters of bottled water for hospitals that care for patients from Covid19.
Solidarity, a lifestyle.
