According to estimates, there are more than 1.9 million families in absolute poverty in Italy (with an incidence of 7.5 percent), for a total of about 5.6 million individuals (9.4 percent), stable values compared to 2020 when the incidence reached its historical highs and was 7.7 percent and 9.4 percent, respectively.

From these alarming data comes the OTB Foundation’s desire to support a true network of multi-purpose centers created to help families struggling with the economic crisis, job loss, and general impoverishment.

The solidarity shops is a multifunctional space that provides a distribution service of basic necessities organized like a real supermarket, within which beneficiaries can find food and non-food products free of charge, to the extent agreed upon with the social welfare agencies that elaborate the accompanying project; then there is a reception area in which beneficiaries are followed by professionals and directed, according to need, to the various offices of competence already existing in the territory with the ultimate aim of facilitating their reintegration into society through multi-level support (ex. training internships, support for women victims of violence, etc.).