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“There is no district in Spain which surpasses the Campo de Gibraltar in terms of solidarity”
At 92 years of age, the former president of the ‘Food Bank for the Campo de Gibraltar’ for over 2 decades, and Freeman of the City of Algeciras, still devotes his time to helping others.
There are people whose kindness is etched in the eye, and who can, with a few simple words impart a lesson in life to those who care to listen. Pepe Cabello, is one of those people, a nonagenarian who continues to do voluntary work at Food Bank, which he was presided over until the beginning of 2018 when the current president, José Serrano, took over.
This good man, who in addition to teaching mathematics for 49 years, was co-founder of the Brotherhood of Blood Donors of Algeciras, has received numerous awards and accolades, including the Freedom of Algeciras, the Algeciras Medal de la Palma and the Golden Antenna of the SER radio network … and there he still is, doing his bit to make our society a better one.
“Dedicating one’s retirement to doing something useful for others is healthy, for the body and for the mind, and if people knew just how rewarding it is, when you already have all the time in the world, to devote a part of that time to something like that, there would be many more people would volunteer…”, he says with conviction, adding that “the worst thing that a person can do, when he retires, being well in health, is to get into his house to watch the time go by”.
Pepe Cabello took over the running of the Food Bank in 1996, after attending the opening ceremony as a guest and offering to lend a hand in whatever way he could, given that he had by then retired.
“That was organized by four Caritas volunteers from the parish of El Carmen, and we started from very humble beginnings, with a total lack of resources, looking for premises, refurbishing it from scratch …”, he recalls, not forgetting to mention other pioneers in that adventure, like Esteban Robles, who was the first president, the recently deceased Miguel Sibón, or José Serrano himself.
Cabello also recalls that the Campo de Gibraltar facility was the first Food Bank that was founded outside a provincial capital, and is the second oldest in Andalusia, coming second to the one in Seville.
“There was a lot of demand for products in the del Carmen kitchen, but soon we began to cover the entire region of the Campo de Gibraltar, and even other towns in the province of Cádiz, such as Chiclana, Alcalá … until the Cádiz Food Bank was established and now we were able to concentrate more on the 275,000 inhabitants of the Campo de Gibraltar.”
Pepe Cabello is a great defender of the region, of the generosity of its people and its enormous potential, and it hurts him that outside insufficient value is given to the Campo de Gibraltar.
“Maybe there will be many that are its equal but I can assure you that there is no other region of Spain that surpasses the Campo de Gibraltar in terms of solidarity, despite the very special circumstances that we have to endure even today … to give you an example; last year, in the giant “Operation Kilo” that we carried out, we collected 145 tons of food in two days … That’s why it pains me that sometimes only negative things are said about the region and the many good things that we have are rarely highlighted.”
Cabello claims to have no negative anecdotes from his 22 years as head of the Food Bank, Cabello claims but he has many positive ones … too many to fit in this article. “In “Operation Kilo”, which we carry out at the entrances to the supermarkets, we have seen everything … I remember having to reassure some lady or some elderly gentleman, who felt guilty for being able to contribute only very little, because of their limited pension, but who still wanted to contribute…
And I also remember the expression on the face of a boy-scout who was helping us; I told him to approach a man holding a bag next to a trolley full of items and the boy’s and my own surprise, when the man said that the bag was his but that we could keep everything that he had in his trolley…”
