The solidarity of the Port Community helps double the contribution to the Solidarity Container

Over 3,000 kg of food and about 10,000 hygiene and cleaning products were collected thanks to the commitment of the workforce

The fourteenth Christmas Solidarity drive at the Port of Barcelona, organised between 10 and 15 December, this year collected over 3,000 kilos of food and almost 10,000 units of hygiene products from workers, companies and bodies of the Port Community. The type of products collected and their value - which exceeded those of the 2018 campaign - helped meet the priority needs of the recipients, the Food Bank Foundation in Barcelona and the IReS Foundation.

All of this material filled the solidarity container that the Port of Barcelona provided for the campaign. For the first time, this year some companies and bodies designated a group of cooperators to promote this solidarity initiative inside and outside their company. Their collaboration and involvement helped to exceed all expectations, with twice the numbers of products collected compared to the last edition.

The container was closed this week at the APM Terminals Barcelona facilities in an event attended by Mercè Conesa, Port of Barcelona President; Nuria Burguera, Director of Institutional Relations and Communication; Pedro Arellano, Deputy General Management and Corporate Development officer; Narcís Pavón, Director of APM Terminals Barcelona, and Carlos Larrañaga, director of Institutional Relations; Laura Esquivel, Deputy director of the IReS Foundation; Roser Brutau, President of the Food Bank Foundation, Oriol Dolader, head of Logistics; and Lourdes Giménez, coordinator of the Department of Socio-professional integration of the CARES Foundation, among other representatives of the aforementioned entities and some of the partners from the participating companies.

The food collected was sent to the Food Bank Foundation in Barcelona, which will be responsible for distributing it to non-profit charities. The personal hygiene products were assigned to the IReS Foundation, which will distribute them among social action organisations to reach people at risk of exclusion.

The campaign was coordinated by the Port of Barcelona but was also made possible thanks to APM Terminals, which provided space for the solidarity container and performed communication and logistics actions; the CARES Foundation, which provided the staff responsible for organising the collection logistics; Butransa, the company in charge of container movements; professional associations of Barcelona Port Community (shipping agents, freight forwarders, stevedores, concession-holders, hauliers, customs agents, etc.) that helped to spread the word among their associates and members; and ZAL Port, ESTIBARNA-SAGEP and the WTCB, which communicated the initiative among their members and companies.