2023-09-26 18:00:00
Thanks to Tina Widmann, the idea of distributing food to those in need instead of throwing it away has become a thriving project that continues to grow.
Tina Widmann tells us regarding the beginnings of “Rolling Hearts” that she once met Merkur Rayons manager Herbert Wieser by chance in a branch. “He said to me, ‘We have so much perfectly good food that we have to throw away. Don’t you have an idea?’ At that time, I attended many community consultations and saw how great the need was for many people – and how invisible,” says Widmann, who was a state councilor at the time. She networked and organized and the “Rolling Hearts” association was founded. After leaving politics, Tina Widmann started as its chairwoman. At the beginning there was a rickety bus, a donation from Prielau Castle, with a spray-painted heart logo by Tamara Volgger. “We stood in front of the bus with three or four boxes and a few boards and exactly 27 people came. ‘Like a hippie bus,’ Herbert Gschwendtner, who then set up the Rolling Hearts in Pongau, said,” remembers Widmann laughing. Today the association supplies over 1,000 people a month in three districts, saving over ten tons of food from the trash and providing it with five buses.
“It doesn’t work, it doesn’t exist”
“We also distribute some of the goods on site when old or sick people cannot come to the bus,” says Widmann. “It doesn’t work, it doesn’t exist – we try to provide everyone with the best possible care.” There are many minimum pensioners (“especially women”), single parents or people with mental illnesses. “We want to take every individual fate seriously and help wherever we can.”
The biggest hurdle to this perfect synergy between local supply and the rescue of intact food is shame: “That’s what we struggle with the most,” says Tina Widmann. “When the price increases came, many people said: ‘I didn’t dare to come until now, but now I really have no other choice.'”
Every month all places in Pinzgau, Pongau, Tennengau
The “Rolling Hearts” now travel to all locations in three districts once a month. Access to the bus is unbureaucratic; no proof of need is required to fill a shopping bag. “This is important – because it is not our place to judge,” Widmann makes clear. The only thing that is often bureaucratic is the handling of food donations: “The hurdles and requirements have certainly increased over the years.” Numerous food retailers are on board, as are private sponsors. The efficient distribution of the surplus is only possible thanks to many volunteer helpers, “everyone of whom knows what kind of action they have to do to make it work.” Hopefully these “hearts” will keep rolling for a long time.
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