With 2018 the third year of Heimatstern e.V. is behind us. As promised we’ll summarize our activities for you.
Our „Tafeldonnerstag“, where we deliver food to homeless and people in need, grew to a fixed support we offer every week. Every Thursday, excepting public holidays, we offer fresh food to the women and men living at the shelter for homeless people, located in the Munich „Bayernkaserne“. We receive vegetables, fruits, milk products, often meat and sweets from the „Münchner Tafel e.V.“. Lots of helping hands supported us and the solidarity within the group of homeless people is growing constantly.
Also weekly, we offered the chance to drop donations at our storage every Friday. We also use this day to sort the incoming donations and hand out needed items to people coming to our place. In case of the increasing demand of donations, we’ve setup fixed days since spring 2018, where people in need can pick up items they require. We took care of about 50 families from „Fliegerhorst Fürstenfeldbruck“ and handed out at least 20 strollers, just as an example.
For the whole year 2018 we organized once a month the delivery of food to people in Idlib, Syria. This is logistically not easy because of the war. Our contact person, Hkam, is calling us short term before the food-delivery. We’ve to send money to a different contact person in Turky, which transports the money to Hkam directly. Then he’s buying the food, packing it and let the supported families know, that it’s ready for pick-up. All this happens under the constant risk of attacks from Assad troops or snipers. We are very thankful for the personal risk Hkam is taking to make this possible for more than one and a half year now.
Also monthly, we support the work of our partners in Uganda, Hope For Life Community International. Our monthly support helps them to organize their Outreach-event with up to 250 attendees. This events take place every Saturday. Our support also makes it possible to provide food and items to children, which they need for school. Therewith our package sponsorship, with donations from you, helps to make this happen. 2018 we realized a lot of special projects, such as sewing courses to teach girls how to sew to change or produce clothes. In addition we managed to deliver sanitary pads made out of cotton within our Girls’ Protection Program to Uganda.
In Greece, we monthly support volunteers, which travel to ill people, doctors, opticians and so on, to bring them donations they need for health care.
From January to June 2018 we supported FoodKIND in Patras, which delivered food to the young refugees, which have been stranded at the port of Patras. End of June the situation changed, due to the fact that the police evacuated the old buildings the people have been living in and gave them shelter somewhere else.
When you look at this massive number of activities, which happened during the past 12 months, it’s really hard to summarize all of them. Especially the fact that we didn’t manage to report all our activities on facebook, due to the lack of time, makes it impossible to report every single pallet, we’ve sent out. Nevertheless, we’ll try to list the most important events in the list below:
January 2018
Funding of the heating costs for the Humans 4 Humanity-Daycenter, Lesbos, Greece
One pallet of donations containing clothes and food for the „Freeshop“ of Humans 4 Humanity
Financial support for Antigone, which used the money to send refugee children to school in Thessaloniki, Greece
Funding of 80 solar lamps for the refugee camp Vial at Chios, Greece
3 pallets sent to Romania
1 pallet with school bags sent to the refugee camp Nea Kavala, Polykastro, Greece
100 camping mats provided for the emergency-camp of Unimo
1 pallet of donations sent to Samos, Greece
Solved the „Kaltwassergrillchallenge“ of Antenne Bayern successfully
Provided electric hospital beds for a hospital in Targu, Romania
February 2018
6 pallets of donations sent to Romania
2 pallets of donations sent to Athens and Samos, Greece
2 pallets of donations sent to Thessaloniki and Athens, Greece
Build up one more huge tent to store things, at the camp Pikpa, Lesbos, Greece
Celebrate the second birthday of Heimatstern e.V.
Deliver one van of donations to Ospiti in Arrivo, Udine, Italy
Spend 1.500 Euro of emergency aid for shoes for Humans 4 Humanity
After checking the situation onsite, support with money for helping refugees in Sarajewo
3 pallets of donations sent to Samos, Athens and Patras, Greece
March 2018
Participate in sewing against freezing babies at „Lernwerkstatt“
3 pallets of life vests sent to Mosaik, Lesbos, Greece. They are producing bags out of them by upcycling and sell them to support refugees
1 pallet of donations sent to Baobab Experience, Rome, Italy
provided financial support for Humans 4 Humanity
paid for the delivery of 1 pallet to Chios, Greece
organized the transport of a special wheelchair to Greece
Deliver one van of donations to Ospiti in Arrivo, Udine, Italy
1 pallet of donations sent to Athens, GreeceApril 2018
provided a van full of donations für the Hungarian project 85609 helps
funded 400 pair of shoes for Hungary
4 pallets of donations sent to Romania and Athens, Greece
constantly growing „Sortierfreitag“ with more and more handouts of donations to people in need
May 2018
2 pallets of donations sent to Romania and Thessaloniki, Greece
participating in Street Life Festival with an own booth
funded 100 solar lights for refugees in northern Iraq
provided emergency aid for several charities after riots in camp Moria, Lesbos, Greece
Babycare-Workshop for refugees in Munich, cooperation with Margit Lorenz
further financial support for projects in Bosnia
June 2018
provided help for a family in Görlitz, Germany, special emergency case
first donations sent to Senegal
provided medical equipment for hospitals in Lettland
1 pallet of foldable buggies sent to Athens, Greece
received a major donation from Levi’s (clothes)
received a major donation from Kärcher (clothes)
July 2018
2 pallets of donations sent to Thessaloniki, Greece
1 pallet of donations sent to Samos, Greece
support for FC Cosmos, a soccer club of refugees from camp Moria, Greece
deliver one van of donations to Udine, Italy
celebrating the Heimatstern e.V. summer fair
second babycare-workshop with Margit Lorenz
3 pallets of donations sent to Athens, Greece
fund the repair of a fountain in Kayunga, Uganda
2 pallets of donations sent to Lesbos, Greece
emergency aid for the victims of the huge fires in Greece, we’ve sent food, toiletries and further needed stuff; cooperation with Grecian Orthodox community
info-counter at Lush shop, Munich
August 2018
starting a sewing-project in Uganda
4 pallets of donations sent to Samos, Patras and Chios, Greece
provided a kitchen for Day Center of Humans 4 Humanity
1 pallet of foldable beds sent to Patras, Greece
supported the camp in Chios with floors for the tents due to the upcoming winter weather
1 pallet of donations sent to north Romania
started the Baria-project to fund a solar-powered well
September 2018
participate in Street Life Festival (autumn)
3 pallets of donations sent to Romania
4 pallets of donations sent to Greece and Romania
in cooperation with the „P-Seminar“ of Willi-Graf-Gymnasium, Munich, we’ve been offering coffee and cakes at every „Sortierfreitag“ since September until November 2018
starting the social-media project #sternbücherherbst
major donation of meds for the camp Pikpa, Greece (value over 1.000 Euro)
funded blankets for the camp Moria, Lesbos, Greece (value 5.000 Euro)
October 2018
transported 400 sleeping bags for Greece
support of a donation-delivery of Erstmal Mensch
sent two vans of donations to Hungary, in cooperation with 85609 hilft
received second major donation from Levi’s; 19 pallets of clothing
7 pallets of donations sent to Attika Human Support, Lesbos, Greece
November 2018
3 pallets of donations sent to Romania and Greece
end of #sternbücherherbst, we collected 1.465 Euro in total via selling 30 books at auction
3 pallets of donations sent to Bosnia, cooperation with Catch a Smile, Luxemburg
fund several deliveries for Pampiraiki Warehouse, Athens, Greece
sent a van of bedrolls and warm clothing to Udine, Italy
4 pallets of donations sent to Romania and Greece
1 pallet of donations sent to Team Humanity, Lesbos, Greece
Baby-Photoshoot at Funkkaserne
fountain-project in Baria officially and successful realized
third participation in „Wunschbaum“ Dachau, Bavaria, with massive media interest
Dezember 2018
started fundraising of electrification for school in Baria
twitter-project #hand2hand2018, with the enormous proceeds of 10.111,11 Euro
started the „sponsor a child“ project at Senegal, until 31st of December 2018 71 people took over a sponsorship
Babycare-workshop with Margit Lorenz
2 pallets of donations sent to Romania, Patras and Saloniki, Greece
2 pallets of donations sent to Thessaloniki and Polykastro, Greece
In total we’ve sent out more than 155 pallets of donations in 2018, most of them via a transport company, but some of them also by van or with vehicles which had capacities left. This have been donations like clothes, medicines, food, toiletries, buggies, foldable beds and many more with a total weight of more than 70 tons. Most of these pallets have been packed 2 meters high, to get the maximum out of the shipping costs. Not counted are the pallets which have been picked up by volunteers all over Germany and brought to us directly.
Beside all this, hundreds of hours have been spent into documentation of all the projects. For us it’s one of the most important things to report in a transparent way, what we’re spending your donations on. All we’re doing can only be done, thanks to your donations! Without all the people helping with money, commodity contributions or volunteer hours, this wouldn’t be possible. Due to this fact, we’ve to report our activities continuously, not only once a year.
2019 has just started, but the situation hasn’t changed for refugees, we’re helping. But we know our efforts will make a difference for a lot of people and make their lives better, sometimes even ensure their survival. So we’re not even thinking about stopping what we’re doing and with all your help, we’ll looking forward to 2019. We will rock, together with YOU! #zusammengehtwas