Starting in December, guests of Biella’s soup kitchen Il Pane Quotidiano (The daily bread) will be able to count on a regular supply of quality seasonal products coming from local producers thanks to a project offering support and promoting inclusivity. This is not an ephemeral Christmas gift or a sporadic contribution, but concrete continuous help for the users of the community sharing service that over time has become a symbol of hospitality. Opened by Caritas in October 2005, the soup kitchen was created with the intention of providing a place of comfort on physical and emotional levels. It is open every day at lunchtime to serve about 90 meals, and has a reception desk to which guests refer monthly, so that they can periodically assess their personal situation and, wherever necessary, the possibility of embarking on processes aimed at alleviating their condition of marginality. Let Eat Bi and Rotaract Biella have chosen to support Il Pane Quotidiano with a project that stands in continuity with Gli Orti del Biellese (Biella’s gardens – all the details in a previous interview). The new initiative is centred on food, strictly natural, local and seasonal. Thanks to the financial commitment of the youth service club, which has already supported the soup kitchen through other solidarity activities in the past, Let Eat Bi has involved its partner farms to regularly supply the kitchen of Il Pane Quotidiano with their quality products, which include fruit, vegetables, cheeses and rice.

The first chapter was written on Thursday 1 December, when Let Eat Bi’s president Armona Pistoletto, and Rotaract’s past president Paolo Candela and club prefect Sabrina Bernardoni met at the soup kitchen together with Federico Zegna and Laura Formagnana, owners of the farm L’Orto da Asporto. The occasion saw the first symbolic delivery of four crates of pumpkins brought by the two producers from Vergnasco to Letizia Zago, kitchen manager of Il Pane Quotidiano. “I thank Let Eat Bi and Rotaract for this donation, set to become a regular weekly contribution, on our behalf and on behalf of the families who will receive the food,” she said, “for us, any help is always significant. In addition, everything that is not used in the kitchen will be offered to food banks for people who are not in a financial position to do their food shopping”. For Rotaract’s past president, Paolo Candela, this operation is the closing of a circle: last year, the project was the first service he and his club committed to supporting; now, that commitment has resulted in this initiative actually being implemented. From start to finish then, the attention has always been on solidarity. “As past president of Rotaract Biella,” specified Paolo Candela, “I am really very proud to see this collaboration with Let Eat Bi take shape. I think that a synergy between the organisations of the territory is fundamental to guarantee an increasingly substantial help for those in need. Through the collaboration with Cittadellarte, our goal as Rotaract Biella is the support of both sustainable local farming and the soup kitchen Il Pane Quotidiano, which, through the supply of crates of fresh fruit and vegetables, can ensure higher quality meals to its guests. I hope and am sure that this synergy will continue over time and make an ever greater contribution to the community”.

Lorenzo Vetri, the new president, has enthusiastically taken up the legacy of his predecessor, in turn believing in the project and giving it continuity. “It is a pleasure for us to continue our collaboration with Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto, in particular by supporting the project Let Eat Bi, which allows us to help the soup kitchen in via Novara in Biella in an active and significant way,” said Veltri, “I really hope that this initiative can carry on throughout my year as president and in the years to come”. Let Eat Bi, for its part, also aims at aggregating, promoting and helping organise the resources and activities (knowledge, actions, projects) operating in the Biella area whose common denominator is the culture of the land, the social and natural landscape. “I am excited about this collaboration with Rotaract because it makes it possible for us to provide truly healthy, local and seasonal food to less fortunate people,” said Armona Pistoletto, “the products we deliver come from the Let Eat Bi market, where I do my own weekly shopping. Knowing that the guests of Il Pane Quotidiano also have the chance to eat these products makes the project Let Eat Bi improve its territorial value day by day,” she concluded.