Kind-hearted business offers free food to people who are struggling: "if you need it, take it"

Every day, the couple put some roast chicken and stews in a fridge outside their shop with a notice saying “If you need it, take it, and enjoy. Be responsible – if you don’t need it, leave it for people who do. Thank you!”.

They decided to do this because of the number of people who asked them if they could help, because they were in such difficult circumstances. First, Patxi and Cristina offered a menu for five euros, but then someone they knew, a builder, came to them in tears and begged for some food because he had no money whatsoever to buy any. The couple were so horrified at his plight that they sat him down at a table and cooked him a meal.

At first, they would give away between eight and 12 roast chickens a day. “It’s a small business, so we gave what we could,” they said. However, other people in the village who had seen what they were doing on social media decided to collaborate by donating money, so there is now more food for the needy in the fridge. “If we can, we will carry on doing this forever. As long as we possibly can, we will,” they say.

At the end of last year a report from Cáritas and the Foessa Foundation warned that the pandemic had been “devastating” for Spanish society, with 11 million people in social exclusion and six million of them in a situation of extreme poverty.