German Comenius team - visiting a charity organisation

In November the German Comenius group visited a local charity organisation in order to get to know more about this social project.

The girls at "Die Gütersloher Tafel"

The organisation we visited is called “Die Gütersloher Tafel”. They make use of the fact that supermarkets very often throw away food that actually is still absolutely fine and could be eaten without any problems or health risks. That is why they collect these products from various supermarkets – e.g. dairy products that have just reached the best-before-date but will still be okay for two more weeks, fruit and vegetables with minimal bruises, and sweets that cannot be sold anymore (e.g. after Christmas massed of chocolate) – and store them in a big warehouse. 

Throughout the week they distribute this food all across Gütersloh to people in need who are officially registered for this kind of help. This way a family can save more than 150€ a month on food, which they can consequently use for other items urgently needed. More than 3500 people in the area of Gütersloh profit from this organisation every week. As it is a charity organisation, it depends on donations and voluntary work to organise the collection and distribution of the food.

The amount of food stored in the warehouse

Last week our Comenius team visited the organisation and was informed about the way they work. Only then most of them realised the scale of help that is given here and the huge effort that the volunteers put into this.

We also learned that “Die Gütersloher Tafel” makes it possible to live healthily even if you do not have much money – something that is not easy to manage on unemployment benefit of welfare money alone.

The amount of fresh fruit and vegetables, yoghurt as well as low-fat meat distributed allows the people to have a balanced diet. From time to time even cookery courses are offered to teach the people how to prepare fresh ingredients properly, so that they will not turn to more unhealthy ready-made versions or fast food instead.

Listening to the information we were given

Generally it can be said that all our pupils once again realised how important good food is to enhance the quality of life. Furthermore all of us will probably think twice from now on when they are about to throw away food just because the best-before-date has gone by and not because the food has gone off.