Volunteers Step in as Greek Poverty Soars

Kerin Hope - Financial Times

EUROKINISSI
Students from Nafplio team up with their local parish to prepare a meal for the needy. Poverty levels have increased sharply as Greece’s economic crisis has worsened, leaving the country’s social welfare system struggling to cope.

ATHENS. (Financial Times). Fifteen years ago Lazaros Papageorgiou and his friends decided to help a group of impoverished Kurdish refugees who were camping out in central Athens, by offering plates of nutritious home-cooked food together with bread donated by city bakeries. Now the grey-haired engineer’s small volunteer team has become Artos-Drassi (Bread-Action), and is catering to a far broader base than Mr Papageorgiou initially envisaged. The group supplies food for impoverished families and soup kitchens that serve daily meals to thousands of residents in the Greek capital.

“We were a few comfortably-off Athenians wanting to do something practical for immigrants,” says Mr Papageorgiou. “But since the crisis hit, we’ve been operating full-time and many of those we help are Greeks.“

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April 17, 2012

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Friday, May 24, 2013 Last Update: 10:49 AM ET