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One menu per week in Pollença

Menú Solidario en Mallorca Chocolate Cake
This is not a gastronomic review for once, but a report on how our aid work in Pollença has developed. And why our expectations were not met.
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For once, this is not a restaurant review. Instead, it's a small update on our aid project in Pollença. Do you remember? We started serving a menu for the needy families in Pollença together with the restaurant R3spira more than a year ago in the deepest Covid times.

Restaurant Respira with the Menú Solidario Pollença
The menu of the week

Soon a year of help in Pollença

And every week. Together with the city hall and the social department, we pushed the campaign in the summer of 2021. The sticking point at the beginning was that long queues formed and, unfortunately, people who were obviously not in need tried to grab a free meal on the backs of those who really needed it.

Menú Solidario en Mallorca Roast Chicken
In mid-May we had fried chicken ...

Shocked, we spoke to the social department at the time. And came up with the idea of creating vouchers that would be handed out by the city hall to the needy families. Since then, this has worked very well every Tuesday.

Menú Solidario en Mallorca Canelloni2
And what is that?

Everything homemade at the Respira

Nicola Celentano, owner of the best Italian restaurant in Pollença according to Tripadvisor, conjures up a new menu every week. On his day off, he shops and cooks the meals. And his charming wife Lorena serves the meals.

Menú Solidario en Mallorca Canelloni
Right! Homemade cannelloni à la R3spira

Together, we had expected that the excellent booking situation would lead to a significant decrease in the number of needy families. In fact, however, this has not been the case so far.

Obviously, the really poor families cannot participate in the possible record turnover that tourism will probably experience this year. This was a shock for us, we had expected something completely different.

Why doesn't everyone benefit?

My attempt to explain this is that the luxury sector in particular - as desired by the island government - is driving the growth in tourism. Mass tourism is basically being economically destroyed by more and more rules and decrees. This is probably hitting the weakest social groups particularly hard, because more jobs in the low-skilled sector are being destroyed.

In general, I believe that especially on this island of the rich and beautiful, we have to be very careful that the less privileged are not left behind. And that solidarity, which in my personal view is even more pronounced in Spain than in Germany, can at least be maintained at a high level.

In December 2021, we, Respira and Predator, jointly informed the mayor of Pollença that we would be able to carry out the relief action in the longer term. We don't want to put out a flash in the pan, we want to help in the long term.

Our foundation

That is why our foundation, the Fundació Predator, also has the motto: "Extending help". We want to help organisations or people who are already providing help. Mostly on a voluntary basis. And who have often already achieved a great deal. We can then use our financial and organisational resources to expand this help. So that even more good can be done. Without money flowing into bureaucracy. Instead, it goes where it makes sense.

Our foundation has been established since December 2021. Unfortunately - you may not believe it - there are still bureaucratic obstacles that make it difficult for us to operate. Therefore, we are not able to accept donations at the moment. However, if you would like to participate in our aid projects, we would be happy to pass this on directly to the organisations with which we work.

And vice versa: If you know of projects that need help, please put us in touch with them!

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