Cesare Fiocco is 64 years old. He's Roman and, after working for years as a body shop mechanic, is now retired. He's always had a keen interest in volunteering, so when his daughter, Jessica Fiocco, 33, an assistant editor for films and TV series, suggested he join her and dedicate a few hours to those in need, he didn't think twice. More than two years have passed, and since then, every Saturday, Cesare and Jessica have been going to the Nuovo Mercato Esquilino, in the Esquilino neighborhood of Rome, and together with other volunteers, they've been working on projects. ReFoodGees They recover the fruit and vegetables that have been set aside in the crates or left on the shelves because they are too ripe, slightly bruised or damaged and distribute it free of charge to anyone who wants or needs it.
ReFoodGees is a social promotion association that, since 2017, has been running the RomaSalvaCibo project, an initiative that involves the recovery and redistribution of surplus food within Rome's local markets. It currently has thirty volunteers. The founder, president, and volunteer coordinator is Viola De Andrade PiroliShe is a Pilates instructor and, before founding ReFoodGees, worked in the grassroots reception of migrants arriving in Rome. She now shares this volunteer experience with her partner Vito Cristella, who has long been involved in social agriculture.
«The project was born first and then the association, in the sense that the initiative was carried out in an informal and spontaneous way: there was no association behind it." Viola explains. Thanks to the network with another similar project fighting food waste, RePoPP, carried out in Turin, RomaSalvaCibo arrived at the Alberone Market in Rome in 2017 and then, after a year of activity, with the founding of ReFoodGees, it moved to the Nuovo Mercato Esquilino. Here, Every Saturday, it saves 600 to 1200 kilograms of excess food from waste: fruit and vegetables that are still in good condition and perfectly edible.A total of 33 to 43 kilograms of food have been recovered in one year. Approximately 200 kilograms of food have been saved from waste since the project began.
«We volunteers also do our own shopping and fill our own bags. Whoever wants to, of course. The idea behind the project is that food is for everyone: we all eat it, and therefore it's truly the most democratic and circular thing there is. There's still so much food that's unfairly and unjustifiably wasted when we could all eat it. Therefore, our project isn't aimed at the poor, although we're obviously happy to help those in need. What we recover isn't waste food for poor people; it's food that I eat, that my daughters eat, and that we all share and bring to the table. It may not be as pretty in some cases, but it's certainly still tasty, and excellent for making fruit juices and smoothies. For example, our logo features a banana, a symbol of the hundreds of kilograms of bananas that arrive at fruit and vegetable stalls, even organic ones, often thrown away simply because they're ripe and brown on the outside. In fact, not only are they still delicious to eat but they are also the ideal ingredient for banana bread.», adds Viola.
But recovering unsold products isn't the only priority for ReFoodGees. As the name suggests, Among the association's objectives is also the social inclusion of refugees and asylum seekers. and, more generally, of volunteers from different parts of the world.
“We recover food and cultivate humanity” This is the association's motto. A phrase that encapsulates the profound meaning of ReFoodGees' work: care for the environment and relationships between people.For us it is important that these two hours turn into an opportunity for socialization and exchange not only between us volunteers but also with the people who line up to receive the food.", Viola says. On several occasions, during the hours in which the RomaSalvaCibo gazebo is open, ReFoodGees has hosted musical concerts: "for us this is a square to animate, to live and to cultivate», adds Viola.
Every Saturday at 15 p.m., she goes to the bakery that has chosen to donate unsold bread, pizza, and focaccia, and then joins the group of volunteers in the Esquilino neighborhood. Distribution of recovered food begins at 17 p.m., when the market closes. But the line begins to form as early as 16 p.m., when the ReFoodGees volunteers begin setting up tables for the fruit and vegetable crates and picking up the trolleys to make the rounds among the stalls. It's a very large group. A diverse crowd, waiting in an orderly fashion, is present. There are people of all ages, from students to retirees and mothers with small children. Some are Italian, and many others come from Africa, Pakistan, Brazil, or Bangladesh. Everyone is carrying a bag from home. Some even carry their Amazon delivery bag as a shopping bag: this too is a form of recycling.We've decided not to provide bags because it discourages single-use. Anyone who forgets their bag will be given a box to take home, but generally everyone has their own bag.», explains Viola.
The New Esquiline Market is a bustling bazaar in the heart of the city's most multiethnic and multicultural neighborhood. A place where you can be overwhelmed by the aroma of spices arriving from distant lands and stop to savor foods hard to find in supermarkets, bringing back memories of times gone by and places long since forgotten. Many foreigners flock to the market from all over Rome precisely because they find the fruits and vegetables typical of their homeland here. Telma OliveiraTelma, a ReFoodGees volunteer, occasionally stops to observe the people waiting and notices the smiles that appear on their faces when they eat a fruit they haven't seen in a long time, since they left their homeland. For her, that smile is one of the greatest rewards of her volunteer work. She is originally from Brazil and met ReFoodGees through Viola: they had worked together in the social field. For Telma, volunteering is a "beautiful way of life» and thanks to ReFoodGees she has learned to shop without waste: to avoid spoiling the food she buys only what she knows she will consume and then, if necessary, she adds other things. Also Lucia DiMauro, responsible for a family home that hosts mothers, children and teenagers, came to ReFoodGees because she was intrigued by the fight against waste but then, day after day, she discovered a reality that also won her over from the point of view of integration: «hI met a beautiful world, it's a wonderful exchange", she says. But there's one thing that excites her most: seeing so many people in line who belong to different ethnicities and traditions but find common ground through food. "It's wonderful to see people exchanging recipes for dishes prepared with foods they don't know the names of, and which they perhaps ask each other about.», adds Lucia.
Among all, there is one vegetable that always arouses curiosity and it is the patola, a vegetable similar to the courgette, with an elongated shape, of Asian origin. «These foods, in addition to being grown, watered, and harvested, have traveled to get here. Transporting them from Central America, South America, or Asia has a significant environmental impact, and then they end up being thrown away. We too have discovered and learned about many vegetables we'd never heard of, and now we consume them.», explains Viola. Sometimes the ReFoodGees group also organizes solidarity snacks that holds the top spot. "Once we received a donation of flour and sugar. We donated them, asking everyone to bring us a dessert from their own culinary tradition for the following Saturday. So, we all ate together the desserts prepared by many of the women who come here every Saturday.», continues Viola.
While the adults in line chat, the children receive a toy: a small gift that allows them to spend time having fun, while mom or dad waits for their turn. «CWe always try to create a place where they can draw and play", adds Viola. A few times, before the start of the new school year, ReFoodGees volunteers, through word of mouth among friends and acquaintances, collected pens, notebooks, markers, highlighters and other stationery to donate to children and young people. This is what was said by Sonia Marisei, ReFoodGees volunteer. «When we receive large quantities of baby food or milk for the foster home and have some left over, I let the person who donated it know that I'll also give it to the mothers and children we see at the market. Sometimes I've even brought clothes and toys: this is another way to avoid waste.», adds Lucia Di Mauro.
It's a riot of carts full of crates containing fruit and vegetables that go up and down the square where the ReFoodGees volunteers inspect the recovered food, weigh it and discard only the excess that absolutely cannot be distributed because it is extremely damaged. Everyone has their own task and among those filling the carts passing between the market stalls are Cesare Fiocco and Sega DansokoThey met through the association and now have a very strong friendship. Sega is very young and came to Italy from Mali several years ago. After completing his schooling, he took professional cooking and pastry courses and now works as a pastry chef. It was his friend Yakouba who introduced him to ReFoodGees: it was 2018, and since then, he's dedicated his free days, Saturdays and Sundays, to volunteering. Every Saturday, after completing his distribution with ReFoodGees, he returns home with his bag of fruit and vegetables. But he doesn't keep it for himself. Sega also collaborates with another association called Mama Termini. Mama Termini volunteers also recover food that would otherwise be thrown away due to the markets' closure on Sundays—food that's still good—and reuse it to prepare home-cooked meals that are then distributed to the homeless at Termini Station and other areas of Rome.
Helping others is important to Sega; it's something he can't do without. His home is far away, but here in Rome he's never felt alone: he's found so many other families who love him. He gets emotional when he remembers the party his colleagues and friends threw for his birthday: "We don't celebrate here in Mali, but they always invite me to my birthday. And I'm so happy about it. Last year we went to a restaurant and had dinner together. It's something I'll never forget.». But Sega is also prepared for the ReFoodGees volunteers' birthdays. «He has a list of all our birthdays: he made it secretly, we didn't notice. And for every birthday he brings a cake to celebrate, he surprises us. And that's beautiful.», says Lucia Di Mauro.
ReFoodGees' work continued even during the most dramatic phase of the pandemic. When everyone was in lockdown and it was necessary to avoid gatherings, volunteers collected excess food and delivered it to associations, which then distributed it to those supported by their network.We continued like this until June, then we started distributing again here at the market, spacing out the queues.», explains Viola.
By 17 p.m., there were already a lot of people in line. Among them was a girl who broke away from the group, reached Viola, and handed her a flower.. A simple gesture, yet full of meaning. Viola is moved.It's not the first time someone has given her a small gift, but each time it's always a powerful emotion she feels when faced with people's gratitude. The girl who just gave her the flower is named Alexia; she's Sicilian but lives in Rome, in the Esquiline district, and studies set design. Collecting fruit and vegetables every Saturday is important to her: not only financially, because it allows her to save on groceries—an important factor for many students—but also from a waste-reduction perspective. In her kitchen, very ripe fruit becomes the perfect ingredient for making a variety of juices with different flavors.
Viola takes away so many beautiful moments from this experience, which, every week, she "defends" from any other commitment. There's one memory that stands out above all others. One Saturday, she says, a little Moroccan girl, when she saw me from afar, ran up to me, and even though we were in the midst of a pandemic and therefore had to keep our distance, she jumped on me and hugged me. Children overcome any barrier, even the necessary ones.
Viola experiences a constant whirlwind of emotions when she talks about the people and stories she's fortunate enough to meet, stories that are her lifeblood. Vito Cristella Instead, he can't help but remember that Saturday when a ninety-six-year-old Calabrian woman, who often stopped by to collect fruit and vegetables, showed up with some money: twenty-five euros, a small sum but a testament to enormous appreciation for the work done by the group of volunteers and for the support given to so many people in need. "You do all this, thank you," the woman said to Vito.When she brought me the money, I told her I absolutely couldn't accept it, and she, worried, replied: "But you don't charge. How do you get by?" I told her not to worry because for us the most important thing is to help those who really need it.», says Vito Cristalla.
ReFoodGees is funded through private donations, taxpayers' contributions (5 per thousand), its website shop, the sale of aprons and other accessories handmade in collaboration with a social tailoring company, and through funding received for various projects. ReFoodGees' activities aren't limited to Saturdays, but extend throughout the week.RomaSalvaCibo is the original project and certainly the one with the greatest visual impact. However, we're also working on other projects, such as school workshops or the midweek "RecuperiAmo" project, launched thanks to funding from a foundation. This initiative involves door-to-door delivery of recovered food every Wednesday to the Nuovo Mercato Esquilino. Once the collection is complete, someone collects the boxes and delivers them directly to the homes of families in financial difficulty we assist. The young people who work on this project have a contract and are paid, which is also important because it offers an opportunity for job inclusion, however small.», explains Viola.
There were also several people who used to go to the ReFoodGees gazebo to take home bread, fruit and vegetables and then decided to join the volunteer team., becoming «integral part of the family» as Jessica Fiocco tells it. «A network has somehow developed between the people who frequent our gazebo and us volunteers. It's nice that there's something more besides the market activity.».
The cover image and some of the other images included in the text are from the "Refoodgees – Roma" Facebook page. Unless otherwise indicated, these images were taken by the author of the reportage.
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