The Restos du Coeur are no longer just distribution points food aid, but warm places where the people welcomed can also come and seek a smile and human warmth: this rule applies to all restaurants in France. However, in Saint-Etienne and Firminy, it has been difficult for several years to welcome beneficiaries in the best conditions.
In Firminy, the Restaurants are looking for a larger room. Two years ago, the association had to leave its premises which were no longer up to standard. Since then, the volunteers have welcomed the beneficiaries in a room too small and unsuitable explains the manager, Georges Bart: “the rooms are small and we no longer have the possibility of storing.” And then people have to wait outside in queues before entering. As a result, volunteers “are fed up”. And, Georges Bart fears that national officials will close the center : “If they saw the conditions in which we evolve, I think they could tell us at some point: “we are closing”.
Every winter, the Restos de Firminy welcome between 160 and 170 people, i.e. around 450 people.
– Mathilde ERRARD
In Saint-Etienne, we can no longer push the walls as well. The team hopes to open a second site before the start of the 2022 winter campaign. Even if the move is not for tomorrow, the managers are working on two serious avenues: a local in Montreynaud and another in La Chauvetière.
The main goal will be to better dispatch the people received, because at the moment, “we are not good, observes the volunteer Jean-Claude Luaire (and also the only candidate to take the next presidency in September). We are not good vis-à-vis the people welcomed but even also the volunteers. They don’t feel well and realize that it’s a bit like Social Security, “number 32, quickly I take. I make quickly and then I take 34!”. It’s a kind of race that is difficult to live with.”
The problem is that on the one hand, the center had to reduce these opening days for lack of volunteers. And on the other hand, the queues have lengthened: during the winter campaign ten years ago, the Restaurants of Saint-Etienne welcomed 900 people against 1,500 today.
One condition remains to open this second site: the Restaurants need about fifty volunteers additional. To contact the association, go to the Restos du Coeur de la Loire website: https://ad42.restosducoeur.org or 04 77 21 63 14.