Status: 12/21/2022 7:37 a.m
Many will celebrate Christmas with family or friends, eat well and exchange gifts. But many also think of those who are alone and have no money.
For some, Christmas is the most beautiful time of the year – for others, their poverty or loneliness is being made clear once again right now. But especially in this time, the willingness to help is great: almost 30 million people are active on a voluntary basis.
Social commitment as fulfillment
Victor Starr from Frankfurt is a passionate air traffic controller. But his even greater passion is to get involved socially for others. For ten years he has been leading the charity event “Long Night on Christmas Eve”. And so he no longer spends Christmas Eve with his family, but with around 1000 homeless people in the Weißfrauenkirche in Frankfurt. Because the homeless “need him more than his family and give him more than he can give”.
60 volunteers support him that night and – like Starr – are not at home. This year, the organizers are expecting an even bigger rush, because the pandemic and inflation are causing poverty in Germany to continue to grow.
“Between Pandemic and Inflation”
According to the joint poverty report 2022, poverty in Germany reached a sad new high of 16.6 percent in the second year of the pandemic (2021). According to this, 13.8 million people in this country must be counted among the poor, 600,000 more than before the pandemic. In view of the current inflation, the Paritätische Wohlfahrtsverband expects the situation to deteriorate further.
Some can hardly imagine Christmas without presents, but this is the reality for many children: Many parents do not know where to get the money for presents this year. So that these children do not go away empty-handed at Christmas, there are wishing trees in many towns and communities in Germany. Children can leave their wishes here.
Anyone who would like to make a child happy takes a card and buys the present. In Frankfurt alone around 5,000 children are given presents. The demand is huge, reports Christine Noth from the Children’s Office in Frankfurt:
Significantly more cards are requested than are available. Especially in the year of crisis, doing something good is even more important to many people than usual.
2022 will bring record donations
Despite inflation and the energy crisis, the German Donations Council in Berlin reports record donations. 3.8 billion euros were already donated between January and September, and donations of up to 5.8 billion euros are expected by the end of the year. 900 million euros in donations alone went to Ukraine, which triggered the donation boom.
And not only monetary donations, countless hours of voluntary work are also done in Germany for the Ukraine. For example, Alevtina Fedorenko from Gmünden in Hesse: Since the outbreak of the war, she has been involved in helping Ukraine for many hours every day.
In addition to living quarters, donations and German courses, she has now organized a community room where all those who have fled Ukraine can come together, not just on Christmas Eve. And for the children who experience their first Christmas in a foreign country far from home, Fedorenko packs hundreds of small presents in bags so that they too can experience a little of the magic of Christmas.