Italian Shops offer free Food to People in need during Coronavirus lockdown
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Edmond Prenga, who runs a bakery near Rome’s Piazza Bologna, started a phenomenon that has been replicated by other local shopkeepers around Rome.
The 39-year-old Prenga, owner of the Bon Pan bakery on Via Lorenzo il Magnifico, attaches bags of bread outside his shop in the mornings, free for those in financial difficulty as a result of losing work during Italy’s Coronavirus lockdown.
He leaves the bags under a message in Italian: “If you need it, this is for you”, alongside Italy’s message of hope: “Andrà tutto bene” (Everything will be all right).
Prenga explains the reason for this kind act: “I experienced hunger, I arrived in Italy in 1998 without a lira, I know these problems well” – “So I decided to put out the bags with the bread because I thought that people are ashamed to ask for food and that it would be better to leave them there to one side.”