Saint Martin and the fruit of a Social Support
25 May 2018 | UNPLI (Italy)
Saint Martin is one of the most revered Saints in the Veneto Region (Italy) and the feelings and belief of people of the territory of the so called “Quartier del Piave” area, where the project was generated, is an example of the link between them and the Saint. In one of its Municipality “Col San Marino”, there is a temple dedicated to him which preserve an urn, from which couples who wish to have the grace of a child extract a name, committing themselves to use it for their future baby.
In our territory San Martino is also inextricably linked also to the agricultural world, because November 11th used to determine the beginning and the end of the agricultural year. Once (until the 50s), if the owner of the fund did not renew the contract to the farmer for the following year, he and his family would have to change jobs and very often the house.
So in this context in 2001 the project “Fruit of a Social Support” was born. A group of parents of disabled children of the “Il Nostro Domani onlus” Association, started a reflection about the “after us” issue: "What will happen to our sons when I will no longer have the strength or I will not be there anymore?" Hence, together with the local Pro Loco Association Consortium “Quartier del Piave”, the idea of arranging some houses where to recreate a family environment, with suitable and protected spaces, able to protect these beloved children and their disability.
So the project planned to activate a network of volunteering associations to help reaching this goal. It started with few of them and nowadays it counts about seventy associations and 800 involved volunteers who, selling a box of organic apples during Saint Martin week, coming from producers developing social projects, has collected in 17 years the sum of € 1,421,577.82, useful to support the arrangement of a dozen houses in the province of Treviso.
St. Martin cut his cloak to offer it to the poor to warm up, his generosity is a value for the territory which our people transmit from father to son and, only thanks to the generosity and their solidarity we can continue to collect many Fruits.
https://fruttosostegnosociale.
Roberto Franceschet, President of the Fondazione “Il Nostro domani” Onlus
