Restos du Coeur de Bagneux: Impact on Families and Winter Campaign Challenges

The Restos du Coeur de Bagneux in Hauts de Seine have reopened for the new winter campaign. Lacking funds, the association is resigned to refusing families and distributing fewer meals. And yet for the beneficiaries, the Restos du Coeur remain essential.

“Ils saved me!” Laurence, 56, remembers this day two years ago, this meeting at the Restos du Cœur de Bagneux “with a nurse who comes by from time to time“. “Thanks to her, I took a test and learned that I had diabetes (…) I went to see the doctor, I have treatment and in a way, it saved my life. life”.

This Tuesday morning, Laurence waits quietly at the entrance to the small Bagneux charity center, her shopping cart within reach. Today, the Restos du Cœur are resuming their food distribution but for many families it is also time to register for the Restaurants.

For the third year in a row, Laurence, a former town hall employee, is counting on the association to ensure, she says, “the end of the month”. “I have half a salary and a small activity bonus, around 800 euros, my rent is 700 so I have 100 left. I have my activity bonus which goes to mutual funds and the end of the month are hard”concludes Laurence, who hopes to soon obtain professional reclassification in the sector where she previously worked.

Patricia – an assumed first name – has an 11-year-old daughter and she too is waiting for her turn. “With inflation, without the restaurants of the Heart, I won’t know how to do (…) I have nothing left in the middle of the month “. Patricia like Bernard, aged just over thirty, made themselves warm inside the charity center. This morning, they came to the Restaurants for the first time. An absolute necessity for Bernard. “I have no income at all, I looked for work and I didn’t find any and I come here to eat.” does he slip in a trickle of voices.

Last year, the Restos du Cœur de Bagneux included 450 families with or without children in the list of their beneficiaries. As a result of this first day of recovery, there should be as many this year, “but it’s still a little too early to say,” cautiously estimates Tassadite, a volunteer who has been involved with the Restaurants for seven years now.

“On Tuesday, we receive small families and on Friday, families of six to seven people,” she says. For food distribution on Tuesday, “we welcome more than 100 people” in three hours, she calculates. The association opens its premises on Thursday evening for students “more and more numerous”, she notes.

Éric Dangotte, the manager of the center where 45 volunteers take turns, puts on a good show, “always in a good mood” according to his colleagues. But the manager of this center is actually concerned. How will this new winter campaign which has just started and which will last sixteen weeks unfold? “As for donations, it’s just enough.” he confides. This year, due to the financial problems that the Restos du Cœur are experiencing, new admission and endowment criteria have been introduced. And Eric Dangotte is reluctantly forced to enforce these new rules.

“People are taking fewer meals, for example, a single person used to take nine meals and now from this campaign they will only take seven meals for the week.” he laments. “For a family with two children over three years old, they took 18 meals, they will take more than 12 for a week,” he adds.

And above all, the association is forced to refuse families. The software used by the association which allows you to find out whether or not a family is eligible for food aid is intractable. Overall, families “who have income above the RSA are automatically refused”.

“I have already had to refuse 25 families since October 15”, regrets this manager. “It hurts the volunteers and it hurts the beneficiaries (…) it is for me, a development contrary to what Coluche wanted.” souffle Eric Dangotte.