Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Seventeenth edition for the Milanese charity initiative. Rabaiotti: “We will add toys to food parcels”

Milan, 12 December 2020 - During the Christmas period, free games are also arriving for children and young people whose families will receive food parcels through the devices that the Municipality is organizing with the Milano Help network. 

It is the "Gift Project", a charitable initiative now in its seventeenth edition and created in collaboration with the Young Entrepreneurs Group of Confcommercio of Milan, which this year involved some Milanese traders of toys, clothing and sporting goods, in order to allow the purchase of gifts via the e-commerce sites of these businesses.

“We are very grateful to the promoters of the 'Gift Project' and to the Young Entrepreneurs of Confcommercio for having thought of dedicating this year's collection of gifts to Milan Help - says the councilor for social and housing policies Gabriele Rabaiotti -. We will give instructions to the managing bodies of the new food aid device, whose applications we are receiving in recent days, so that they collect the gifts and insert them in the food parcels, matching the type of game with the age of the children present in the families reached ”. 

On the initiative website www.progettogift.it, all those who wish to participate in the initiative will find direct links to the online shops of participating retailers, where it will be possible to find a dedicated list of objects selected for recipients aged 0 to 16. 

The gifts purchased through the lists will be delivered directly to Gift logistics which will deliver to Milano Help, whose volunteers will deliver the gifts to families in difficulty with children and adolescents during the distribution of food parcels during the Christmas period. 

The Gift project was born in 2004 from an idea by Federico Gordini, president of the Young Entrepreneurs Group of Confcommercio of Lombardy. The objective is the collection of gifts and their distribution - on 24 and 25 December - to children and adolescents staying in family homes, childcare facilities and pediatric departments in Milanese hospitals. Over the years the initiative has extended its range of action to other Lombard cities such as Monza and Brianza, Como and Lecco. Gift only accepts new gifts and collects them through donations from individuals, companies and Christmas events in the various cities in which it is active.

“In a difficult year like the one that is about to end - explains Federico Gordini - initiatives like Gift take on greater importance than in the past. The difficulty of the moment has drastically increased the number of families in difficulty and even a simple gesture such as a Christmas gift can light up an extra smile and give a moment of serenity to children and young people experiencing difficult situations. For this reason we are honored to be able to contribute with our collection to the projects of Milano Help, the large support network for people in difficulty in the Municipality of Milan and we thank councilor Rabaiotti for his support of our initiative. Participating is really simple, placing an extra gift under the tree of a child in difficulty is first of all a great gift for all of us."