CÖF donated canning equipment to civil organizations in Somogy county

The Civil Solidarity Public Foundation and the Association of Hungarian Women's Interests continued their donation tour this year, and on Wednesday they arrived at their last spring stop, Balatonföldvár. In the course of their charity campaign launched in 2016, they delivered more than 400 home canning devices to 90 locations, among others to catering kitchens, primary producers, and large families. In addition to the appliances, the donors also handed over a recipe collection containing healthy dishes, which was created with the professional assistance of master chef Péter Buday.

During the donation program, Kinga Szőnyi, the president of the Association of Hungarian Women's Interests, greeted the attendees first, and then Norbert Heizler, the national coordinator of the Civil Solidarity Forum (CÖF), took over from him.

Norbert Heizler said at their press conference that their civil mission activity started years ago, and so far they have handed over 400 fruit and vegetable processing devices to about ninety places, including communities across the border. Beneficiaries included non-governmental organizations, catering kitchens, small entrepreneurs and large families who could receive homemade canning devices as a donation.

Their goal is to provide assistance that enables locally produced raw materials to be processed, consumed, and sold locally. In addition, I would like to motivate organizations to organize community-building programs in addition to making products:

through the procurement and collection of the raw materials to the processing processes and the shared consumption, they all offer the opportunity to spend useful time together.

During this year's spring tour of the country, 10 locations and 10 counties were visited, and 21 bottling machines and drying equipment were handed over.

The CÖF has previously visited the county, around Kaposvár and Siófok. Now the location in Balatonföldvár is a new area of ​​the county, where they arrived, added Norbert Heizler.

From this year, CÖF-CÖKA contacted the Civil Community Service Centers and the recipients were selected based on their recommendation, as they know these organizations best, and they know for whom the donation can be most useful, i.e. where they know the best about the canning machine take advantage of.

Árpád Olsovszky, head of the Somogy county Civil Community Service Center, said that there are more than 2,500 civil organizations in the county, with approx. half of them work, of which they are in contact with more than 800.

One organization in Karád and two in Balatonföldvár received donations from the county. Mesék Völgye Foundation from Karád , Zenebárátok Kore Egyesület and Balatonföldvár Sports Association . All three organizations were very happy with the opportunity, they will be able to use the tools mainly at their events, but they also identified community building as an important goal.