‘Pending bread’ campaign

It’s been almost 8 year since I moved to Turkey, but there are still many things to learn about it. And, as it seems that I know Alanya very well, I still keep on finding something new in here.

For example, last Sunday, walking in Alanya, I’ve spotted I big basket next to a bus stop in front of one small shop called Unal Market on 25-m Street with “Askıda ekmek kampanyası” written on it, which means something like “Pending bread campaign”. As I learnt about it from my husband, this is a form of donation, which works like this: for example, you buy two breads from the shop and say, “One is for ‘pending’”. You pay for three breads, take two of them and one goes to the “pending basket”. Later, some needy person can come and take it from there.

As I learnt later, this practice is very popular in Italy. One of Turkish journalist on his visit to Italy saw it and wrote about it in his column. After the publication, many shops and bakeries picked up the idea and started to organize such campaigns.

It seems like a very easy but effective way of helping other people, which one can do every day. But, as I ran against it just now and never saw before, I concluded that it is not a very widespread practice in Alanya. Apparently, this kind of campaigns are more popular in big cities such as Antalya or Istanbul. In some places, they don’t put the bread to a separate basket but write on a board outside the shop how many bread loafs are pending.

One can think that providing people just with bread is not enough. But you have to know that bread is essential in Turkish meal. Turks eat it more than other food itself and can consume one loaf per person during a meal. Consider big family’s budget for bread then. There are some families, struggling to make ends meet, which buy yesterday’s bread for half price from bakeries. It is hard to believe, especially seeing all this tourism glitter and hearing that Turkey considers itself affluent enough to be able to help starving African children, but unfortunately it is true and these people live next to us.

I don’t urge anybody to rush helping needy people or establishing charity funds. Still, for the ones who would like to help, the market is located on 25-m Street not far from old “82 Salı Pazarı” store.

By the way, charity is also a matter of trust in some way. When you donate something, you want to believe that it will help needy people and won’t be abused by someone who will just get richer and laugh at you. Thus, when you buy an extra bread and leave it for somebody, you hope that that somebody is the one who really needs help, and that the shopkeeper won’t sell your ‘pending’ bread for the second time. You can never know, you can just believe. The way poor people believe that tomorrow they will find some bread in a ‘pending bread’ basket again.

“Pending bread campaign is carried on thanks to you. We are very grateful to you”.