Boroume [We Can!]: Saving Food, Saving Lives

At the end of 2011, a group of friends saved 12 cheese pies left over at a bakery in a poor neighbourhood of western Athens and ensured their distribution to the local soup kitchen run by the church. Three and a half years later, the same group is now coordinating the daily distribution of some 4,000 portions of surplus food to charities all over Greece.

This group – Boroume ("We Can!" in Greek) – is a non-profit that fights food waste by organising the distribution of surplus food for charity. Founders Alexia Moatsou, Xenia Papastavrou and AlexandrosTheodoridis, along with dozens of committed volunteers, work every day in order to fight food waste.

In 2014 alone, Boroume "rescued" more than 1.3 million meals from ending up in the garbage -- a 400% increase in the amount of food salvaged and distributed to those in need compared to 2013. Estimating the average value of each food portion at € 1.50, this amounts to a contribution of almost 2 million euros.

"When we first set up our organisation we did not expect such a response or that we would be able to coordinate the collection and distribution of thousands of food portions per day," says AlexandrosTheodoridis, one of the three founders of Boroume.
By placing just one phone call to Boroume, the leftover food from a family dinner, a corporate event, a wedding reception, a supermarket or other can be donated to a soup kitchen or an institution in need. 

From its inception in 2011, Boroume drew up a map of all the food aid programmes in the country, which is accessible on its website. Today, its database contains more than 660 potential recipient organisations such as soup kitchens and more than 180 municipal social services in the whole of Greece. The organisation relies heavily on its volunteers. According to the figures for 2014, on average, 30 volunteers support Boroume on a weekly basis, and 65 new volunteers were trained.

In 2014 Boroume launched four new programmes aimed at fighting food waste and supporting poor families:
*  A gleaning project to save fresh fruit and vegetables that cannot be sold on the market and that would otherwise be left on the fields to rot 
*    The "We Are Family" project to provide nutritional assistance from donations within and outside of Greece directly to people in need
*    The "Boroume in the Neighbourhood" initiative whereby groups of volunteers raise awareness about food waste across neighbourhoods
*    The "Boroume at School" project, a series of educational activities that mainly targets primary school children.
Boroume has invested greatly in its gleaning project. In 2014 the team managed to save more than four tonnes of fresh fruit and vegetables from different areas in Greece. As Alexander Theodoridis explains, "We are conducting meetings with farmers across the country to convince them not to let the agricultural produce they cannot sell go to waste, emphasising that we organise for groups of volunteers to collect the produce according to strict rules so that no damage to the crops is incurred."

The writer is a journalist of Ta Nea, Athens, Greece

For more information:
www.boroume.gr
www.facebook.com/Boroume
The writer can be contacted at esaltou@dolnet.gr