Join Us in the Blue Bucket Campaign of Dorkasz Ministries to Support Families in Need!

It is a tradition for United Call Centers to support charity initiatives as the holiday season is approaching. After the Love Cookie Factory, the One Box of Love, the donation event organized to benefit the Hungarian Red Cross’ Homeless Support Center, and the Santa Claus Event, this year together with companies participating in Debrecen BSC Roundtable we support the „Blue Bucket” campaign of Dorkász Ministries, which provides staple food to people in need.

The Blue Bucket staple-food collecting event is a subsidized meal project. The aim of the project is to raise awareness of the importance of donation among those who can afford to help their peers in need. Dorkász Ministries collects staple canned food in 12 liter plastic buckets for people in need, they support elderly people, single-parent families and people with long-term illnesses as part of the project, where the monthly income does not allow them to have full meals every day. Ábel Lukács Kiss, director of the Foundation, spoke about the activities of the organization and the Christmas fundraising:

"The Blue Bucket campaign of the Dorkász Ministries started 12 years ago in Hungary, and we have had similar initiatives internationally since the 1990s. During the campaign, we collect durable food in 12-litre blue buckets with a lockable lid for families in need and elderly people living in extreme poverty. Typically, these are consumables - flour, sugar, rice, pasta, oil, tinned food, possibly spices, sauces and of course sweets for the little ones - which can be used in households that sometimes lack basic kitchen equipment. Specifically, they don’t have a kitchen, a microwave or any kind of cooking utensil, but they can heat water, for example. Every year we fill up 3-4000 buckets, enough to help around 8-10,000 people. We organise these collections several times a year, and the end-of-year campaign is specifically designed to make Christmas a little bit happier, to enrich the festive table for those who are not thinking about what new clothes or toys to put under the tree, but rather whether there will be food on the table. The fundraising campaign currently covers 35 settlements, mainly in Eastern Hungary, but we also try to help in Transylvania and Transcarpathia where we can. 

Statistics show that at least 520 000 people live in extreme poverty in Hungary, but this number is could be higher in reality. Here we have to think of situations in which people cannot afford to buy everyday food, families live in uncomfortable housing conditions, children cannot get to school, and there is no possibility of buying clothes or school supplies. In addition to families in need, there are many pensioners who live on twenty thousand forints a month, and have to manage to eat for 30-31 days and pay for other living expenses and medicines. For the majority of society, this is hard to imagine, and the phenomenon is not only visible in the small villages that are becoming isolated and depopulated. If we are talking about Miskolc or Debrecen, we don't have to drive more than 5-10 minutes to meet people who live without running water, bathrooms and kitchens, both in the city centre and in the surrounding settlements. For people who may not be visited by their relatives for many months, it is a great help if someone brings a small donation, asks them how they are, possibly strokes their hand and talks to them for a few minutes."

Richárd Kozma, Managing Director of United Call Centers has said the following on the initiative:

"The fact that we are Family-Friendly Workplace and a Responsible Employer, is not only recognition, but it is also a duty (in a positive way) to lead by example. As the holiday season is approaching we are thinking about those every year, who might be in need from any point of view, since this time, when most people celebrate, it is more and more important that nobody feels left behind. It is our privilege to support Dorkász Ministries’ initiative as part of DBSC Roundtable’s member companies. We hope we can inspire others this way to join a good cause as much as they can."

If you would like to support the Blue Bucket campaign of Dorkász Ministries, to put food on as many families’ tables as possible, you can join the donation program the following way:

1. Visit the website of Dorkász Charity using this link
2. Drag’n’drop the blue bucket to the left side.
3. Drag’n’drop the foods you want to purchase to the Blue Bucket.
   1. If you don’t have time, you can select a pre-made bucket from the bottom.
4. Continue to checkout!
5. Follow the remaining steps, and after a card payment, the online donation is sent.

If you need help, please contact the Foundation's staff at [email protected] or call +36 52 441 119.

More information is available on the Facebook page and website of Dorkász Ministries and on the Facebook and website of Debrecen BSC Roundtable.