The Charity Foundation Foodbank Rus is launching a regional branch in the Novgorod region. The regional team and volunteers will distribute free food and basic necessities to needy residents of Veliky Novgorod and other regions. The online charity marathon Basket of Kindness for Children’s Day was their first project.
The food bank branch has opened with the support of the Government of the Novgorod region and the Agency for Strategic Initiatives. The project has become a priority for Veliky Novgorod and will be funded by the regional authorities. The department is going to introduce food sharing, food marathons, and other smart technologies of Foodbank Rus in the region.
Andrey Nikitin, Governor of the Novgorod region: “The project we are going to implement together with Foodbank Rus is important for us in terms of supporting vulnerable categories of people. Of course, we will take an active part and support it.”
The food bank identified 400 most needy families with children for the Basket of Kindness campaign. The online marathon takes place in three stages: people donate money for food aid on the website корзинадоброты.рф between May 10 and June 1. The fund purchases food for the collected donations, and X5 Group, co-organizer of the Basket of Kindness program, doubles its amount. Volunteers from the regional branch of the food bank package the food into sets. The kindness baskets for Novgorod families include milk, sunflower oil, cereals, canned meat and vegetables, dried fruits, and holiday sweets.
Yulia Nazarova, President of the Charity Foundation Foodbank Rus: “The launch of the new, 16th regional branch of the fund in Veliky Novgorod is an important milestone for us. We strive to create infrastructure that will efficiently help people and nature by bringing together the business community, government authorities, volunteers, and society in general.”
International Children's Day is celebrated on June 1 and aims to raise awareness of challenges that children around the world face. Large families are among the main categories that benefit from the Basket of Kindness project and Foodbank Rus. Opening of a new branch will enable residents of the Novgorod region to receive the necessary food aid all year round.
The social project Basket of Kindness was launched by X5 Group and Foodbank Rus back in 2015. As such, X5 was the first among Russian retailers to build an infrastructure for providing food aid using food drive technology and continues to develop it, enabling customers to donate food to Foodbank Rus volunteers online or directly in the store for the benefit of people in need and homeless animals. In turn, Foodbank Rus provides infrastructural support for Basket of Kindness: from collecting and packaging food by an extensive volunteer community to transporting and distributing food help through a network of its own food banks, partner NPOs, and social protection authorities.