Zagreb, (IKA) – Caritas Croatia, in keeping with its mission, aware of the difficult living conditions and deepening crisis that have severely affected impoverished families, conducted a national fundraising campaign from June 10 to 30, Ready for Good, in order to help impoverished families in Croatia purchase new textbooks and school supplies for the upcoming school year, and collected 350,000 HRK.
With the support of the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports, as well as numerous Croatian counties and cities, in cooperation with Lidl Croatia and Unijapapir, used textbooks, exercise books, magazines and newspapers were collected. Collections were organized in elementary and secondary schools on the last days of classes during this period via the network of 85 Lidl stores and in parishes that decided to participate in the campaign. The printed materials were sold to Unijapapir.
Students from more than 300 elementary and secondary schools from all parts of Croatia and numerous citizens who brought their printed materials to Lidl participated in the campaign. During the campaign, a total of 400,360 kg of printed materials was collected. With the funds from their sale to Unijapapir, together with monetary donations made by citizens to the bank account of Caritas Croatia, as well as from calls to the Caritas Croatia fundraising telephone number, the amount of 132,215.77 HRK was collected.
Lidl Croatia donated the proceeds from one week’s sales of packaging materials at all the Lidl stores in Croatia, 69,834.16 HRK. Caritas Croatia added 147,950.07 HRK to the collected funds and covered the expenses of conducting the campaign. In this way, a total of 350,000.00 HRK was collected for the Fund for Assistance in Purchasing Textbooks and School Supplies for Elementary and Secondary School Students from Impoverished Families. These funds were sent to the arch/diocesan branches of Caritas, which will provide the amount of 350 HRK per child to 1,000 needy elementary and secondary school students throughout Croatia for assistance in purchasing textbooks and school supplies.
Since the mechanisms announced by the local governments for purchasing school textbooks are generally intended for elementary schoolchildren, Caritas Croatia suggested that when selecting recipients, its network should especially consider secondary school students, calling for arch/diocesan branches of Caritas to set aside their own funds, to the extent possible, for this purpose in order to provide socially vulnerable groups of schoolchildren with a more equitable opportunity to acquire knowledge.
In addition to assistance to schoolchildren from impoverished families, with the campaign Caritas Croatia wanted to help develop awareness about responsibility for creation and environmental protection, mobilize the community around a good cause, and strengthen unity, solidarity and the belief that together we can be agents of change for the better, especially for the most vulnerable social groups.