On one of the walls of the San Francisco community dining room in the Girardot neighborhood, south east of Bogotá, they placed an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Her face is so real that it seems that she is alive, with that loving and warm expression of a mother. That look receives 220 children every day who come to receive lunch for free. For many it will be the only food of the day.

Volunteers are in charge of helping the little ones.

God's mercy is seen and his presence is made real in every corner of this Community Dining Room where our students serve as volunteers.

MORE THAN ONE EXPERIENCE

The first instructions are always the same: "Let's make these kids happy lunch."

Volunteers accompany the children during lunch and serve them first the soup, then the dry, and finally the juice.

It is 11:30 in the morning and the little diners begin to arrive.

However, today is a special day. Thanks to an alliance with the School Nueva Lengua, the attention and the service, will be in charge of several foreigners who come from all over the world to learn Spanish in Colombia.

Visitors will not only have the opportunity to practice their knowledge in Spanish. Today the task is to open your heart by giving a little love and sharing lunch, talking, playing, learning from them and serving them for a couple of hours.

This work, from which children from 2 to 16 years old benefit, are children of a very large community of recyclers. Most of them live in houses made of wood, or made with zinc tiles. Their parents recycle garbage to survive and many have come to these slopes in the hope of starting to build a better life.

SERVE TO LEARN

Beyond the experience of accompanying children for a few hours, foreigners assure that they value the fact of seeing another reality different from the one they live in their countries of origin, since they are recognized as privileged people in humanity, not only because of their social condition, but because they can help others, they know God through the love that they come to deliver in a simple plate of food.

Within the student team, many are young and have never had the opportunity to work with vulnerable communities like this one. Although the teacher has explained to them where they are going to go, it is one thing to be told about poverty and quite another to live it, feel it.

SERVERS FOREVER

Angie Hernández is one of the inhabitants of the sector. She, in addition to helping to cook; serve, wash, carry and serve diners. She knows that managing poverty is very difficult, but she has that certainty that food prepared and served with love tastes better. Every day he helps to plan the menu, which, although it does not always have meat, is valued and received because they know that it comes from God and from some good people who donate market and money for the community. The truth is, it is so popular that nothing is left in the pots. On the plates, less.

As many of the children still do not know how to eat by themselves, the 'gringos' dress up with the best attitude and give food to the most babies. They caress them, hug them, pamper them as if they were their own children.

At the end of the day, we see how the sometimes sad looks of the children turn into sweet smiles. But even better, foreigners live that premise that can only be corroborated with experience that says: it will always be better to give than to receive.

Click and join us in this important and rewarding work