Unfashionable late as usual, but here are the numbers plus some really good news:
June (donations) and July (costs) of running my, not so little anymore, neighbourhood pantry:
Summary
Donations leftover from the previous month: 195,75 Euros
Donations received in June: 811,83
Costs of buying supplies (food and basic cleaning supplies) for the neighbourhood pantry July 2022: 829,18 Euros
Carry over to August: + 178,40 Euros
Link to receipts: (This is a ZIP folder, I am on a Mac and take cybersecurity seriously, but please, still scan it before unzipping, it’s just good practice 😉
Also, forgot to mention it last month, I still have 300 Euros of ’emergency cash’ in storage, so all good for the foreseeable future!
Three good news to share:
I will go away for a few days this week to visit friends in Portugal and recharge my batteries. I plan to cuddle their two dogs until they bark for mercy 😉 One of my neighbours will take on the distribution of the things in the pantry, so nobody will be in distress whilst I am gone.
I have a new allotment, slightly farer away than I like (~3km) but it comes with no strings attached, so basically I can do whatever I like with it. Because of the distance I think I will mostly concentrate on fruit trees, berry shrubs and the like, at least for this year. I will also ask some of my neighbours if they would like to help. Any surplus product will go to any project that helps with food insecurity here in Santiago.
I did run a very successful fundraiser on Facebook for Saint James’ Day, so the shelves will be continued to be stocked for a long time, which gives me incredible peace of mind!
That’s all, for now, big abrazos (hugs) from Santiago, SY
PS Forgot to add, my landlord allowed me to put up a third shelf (for clothing, shoes and other useful small items). So happy!
Just to mix up things a bit, first a few updates of what has going on lately in my life and then the numbers.
Adios Allotment
Sadly, I lost the allotment. I am still very furious about how I and two of my friends here (Tim and Maggie) have been taken for a ride, so I try to keep this story short and as neutral as possible. Basically the people who hold the paperwork for the allotment (I only had a verbal agreement with them) waited until most of the clearing work (lots of brambles!) was done and then gave it to somebody else, destroying at least 50% of what I had planted already in the process. I am still too furious to write a blog post about this but the good news is that I might have a new allotment soon, I will keep you posted.
May/June Accountability
Once again many days late, but here are the numbers for May (donations) and June (costs) of running my little neighbourhood pantry:
Donations leftover from the previous month: – 128,09 Euros
Donations received in May: 983,57 Euros
Costs of buying supplies (food, basic cleaning supplies plus a bottle of gas to cook the food for one of the families) for the neighbourhood pantry June 2022: 659,73 Euros
Carry over to July: 195,75 Euros
That is how the shelves typically look on a Monday (photo taken this week), by the weekend they are nearly empty. Sorry once again for the bad image quality!
Link to receipts: (This is a ZIP folder, I am on a Mac and take cybersecurity seriously, but please, still scan it before unzipping, it’s just good practice 😉
The biggest donation came in via a pilgrim that did a ‘fundraising pilgrimage’ for three good causes here in Santiago, my pantry being one of them.
Also, I had now quite a few pilgrims and/or friends visiting my little pantry and bringing in kind donations. I am always happy to show any- and everybody my little set-up, chat about my neighbours and perhaps you will even meet them. Just contact me a bit beforehand to make sure I am at home.
Too hot to type more, as we are experience a heatwave here in Spain, currently 34C in my flat, but a little advance warning: I will run another Facebook fundraiser this coming weekend to keep the shelves stocked and to provide a bit of extra cheer aka Tartas de Santiago etc for my neighbours. This is an ongoing need.
As always, if you have any questions/comments, please leave them here on the blog!
I am also awaiting the delivery of another shelf (for clothing, shoes and other small, useful items) to be put up on the ground floor. I solemnly promised my landlord it will be the last one 😉
Big abrazos (hugs) from Santiago and stay safe and cool wherever you are, SY
Sorry, again a few days late, but here are the numbers for April (donations) and May (costs):
Summary
Donations leftover from the previous month: 170,80 Euros
Donations received in April: 495,67 Euros
Costs of buying supplies (food, basic cleaning supplies plus a bottle of gas to cook the food for one of the families) for the neighbourhood pantry May 2022: 794,56 Euros
Carry over to June: – 128,09 Euros
Link to receipts: (This is a ZIP folder, I am on a Mac and take cybersecurity seriously, but please, still scan it before unzipping, it’s just good practice 😉
Sorry if this a very short blog post, feeling a bit under the weather right now. As soon as I can I will write up another one with updates on what is going on in my life here in Santiago. And also sorry for the following repeat of what I wrote in an earlier post:
If you want to donate to something specifically, just put a note against it or contact me if you have any special question/idea.
The receipts are now all ‘neighbourhood pantry’ only. The little I need for myself I can go easily shopping on foot for myself. So, less confusion for everybody and more exercise for me!
And yes, there is still a tiny bit of overlap between the pantry and my own supplies. If I forgot to buy tomato sauce for myself, I grab one from the pantry shelves, if my neighbours run out of toilet paper on a Sunday afternoon, I split what I have in the ‘penthouse’ with them. There will be always this kind of overlap, but I keep it to the bare minimum and make sure it balances out both ways. Like I said before, for me it’s not about charity but about sharing what I have and what I can fundraise for with your help.
The ’emergency fund’ of just over 300 Euros (should I need it aka if things are really going haywire/south here in Europe) is still intact, lets pray for peace and less raise in prices (worldwide!).
If you want to contribute to what I do, two very important points first:
Please don’t give more than you can easily afford.
Please don’t give any amount that you wanted already to give to another project.
Said all this, I could never have done all this without the help of all of you scattered around the whole world. So a huge MUCHAS GRACIAS to all of you!
And a last, big Mea Culpa, I know I am horribly bad in keeping up with my email inbox, so if I haven’t acknowledged your donation, please drop me a note in the comments here and I will get to it ASAP.
Also, if you have any questions and/or need clarification about anything, just do the same.
Plus, if you are in Santiago, I am always happy to show you the pantry and chat about my neighbours.
(This is a ZIP folder, I am on a Mac and take cybersecurity seriously, but please, still scan it before unzipping, it’s just good practice 😉
Fully stocked pantry this Monday, the ‘temperature sensitive’ things are upstairs in my fridge and freezer.
Apart of a short mention on a forum and this blog https://egeria.house/moving-easter-cheer-and-updates/ that I wanted to provide a little extra ‘Easter Cheer’ for my neighbours I didn’t do any fundraising in March as I had enough to stock up the pantry 😉 I received a few dedicated donations to that so that there was plenty of chocolate for both adults and kids for Easter. Plus a fluffy soft toy for the little girl born in January! Thank you all so much for that!
So if you want to donate to something specifically, just put a note against it or contact me if you have any special question/idea.
The receipts for April are now all ‘neighbourhood pantry’ only. The little I need for myself I can go easily shopping on foot for myself. So, less confusion for everybody and more exercise for me!
And yes, there is still a tiny bit of overlap between the pantry and my own supplies. If I forgot to buy tomato sauce for myself, I grab one from the pantry shelves, if my neighbours run out of toilet paper on a Sunday afternoon, I split what I have in the ‘penthouse’ with them. There will be always this kind of overlap, but I keep it to the bare minimum and make sure it balances out both ways. Like I said before, for me it’s not about charity but about sharing what I have and what I can fundraise for with your help.
The ’emergency fund’ of just over 300 Euros (should I need it aka if things are really going haywire/south here in Europe) is still intact, lets pray for peace and less raise in prices (worldwide!).
Two more updates:
The original tenants https://www.facebook.com/CaminoCompanions/ of the ‘balcony flat’ are back and, in exchange for one of the neighboours exchanging also their gas bottle will contribute, in kind, to the pantry. Thank you for coffee, sisters!
Garden/Allotment – OOPS! Between moving, having a few not so great days (including a minor accident) and meeting up with pilgrim friends both old and new, I have done very little in the garden lately. Tomorrow two dear friends will be visiting both the pantry and the allotment and I will see how bad the (weed) damage is …
If you want to contribute to what I do, two very important points first:
Please don’t give more than you can easily afford.
Please don’t give any amount that you wanted already to give to another project.
Said all this, I could never have done all this without the help of all of you scattered around the whole world. So a huge MUCHAS GRACIAS to all of you!
And a last, once again, a big Mea Culpa, I know I am horribly bad in keeping up with my email inbox, so if I haven’t acknowledged your donation, please drop me a note in the comments here and I will get to it ASAP.
Also, if you have any questions and/or need clarification about anything, just do the same.
Plus, if you are in Santiago, I am always happy to show people the pantry and allotment (if you like weeding, even the better 😉 – just kidding! All with no strings attached!
I actually found it really helpful to finally write up this blog post, this way I also see where the money goes exactly to. For simplicity’s sake I have divided it up in three parts:
Shovel and seeds for my little solidarity garden project 😉
Very Short Summary (at the end is the link to the receipts I have).
Detailed Summary
Outlook to the Future
Very Short Summary
Donations leftover from previous months: ~1,100 Euros
Costs of buying supplies for my neighbourhood pantry and fledgling solidarity garden in March 2022: 757,47 Euros
(This is a ZIP folder, I am on a Mac and take cybersecurity seriously, but please, still scan it before unzipping, it’s just good practice 😉
Detailed Summary
Towards the end of February I run a birthday fundraiser (now closed) for my neighbourhood pantry on Facebook but you can see it still here: https://www.facebook.com/donate/2428844467245911/ A few donations came also in via Paypal. So, whilst some of this arrived in March, I decided, again for simplicity’s sake, to bundle it all up into February. I haven’t kept any receipts until after the first week of March (sorry about that, will do better in future!), so the ‘carry over’ of ~1,100 Euros donations is a realistic estimate only, as I also spend some of the money on the pantry and garden in the last week of February and the first week of March.
I received one dedicated donation for gardening tools and seeds, so if you want to donate to something specifically, just put a note against it.
Receipts, there are two missing for March, one is for 3 Euros to buy non-prescription medicine for one of the families, the second is for my first online order in March for 76,78 Euros.
All other expenses are documented in the attached files (see above) and I have taken out the items I purchased for me personally.
Here is a summary list of what I have spend your donations on (Froiz, Dia and Gadiz are our local supermarkets btw):
76,78 Euros Food & Basics Froiz, no PDF receipt
114,37 Euros Food & Basics Froiz
3 Euros Medication
19,70 Euros Cooking gas for one family
133,17 Euros Food & Basics Froiz
3,06 Euros Dia Stock-up
95 Euros 5x Fruit and Vegetable Box from https://www.facebook.com/aHortadaAvoa
149.17 Euros Food & Basics Froiz
21,90 Euros Gardening Tools
29,08 Euros Vegetable Seeds
3,06 Euros Gadiz Stock-up
9,90 Euros More gardening tools 😉
3,14 Euros Dia Stock-up
96,14 Euros Food & Basics Froiz
I also received a big in-kind donation consisting of two big shopping bags full of food (lots of lentils and peas!).
Plus I have access to an ’emergency fund’ of just over 300 Euros should I need it aka if things are really going haywire/south here in Europe. But if that doesn’t happen, we hope and pray for it!, the money will go back to the donor.
Outlook to the Future
Like pretty much everywhere else, prices are going sharply and steadily up and nobody knows how everything will play out in the end. As long as I can, I will help my neighbours, because for me it’s not about charity but about sharing what I have and what I can fundraise for, with your help.
If you want to contribute to this, two very important points first:
Please don’t give more than you can easily afford.
Please don’t give anything that you wanted already to give to another project.
Said all this, I could never have done all this without the help of all of you scattered around the whole world. So a huge MUCHAS GRACIAS to all of you!
And a last, big Mea Culpa: I know I am horribly bad in keeping up with my email inbox, so if I haven’t acknowledged your donation, please drop me a note in the comments here and I will get to it ASAP.
Also, if you have any questions and/or need clarification about anything, just do the same.
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