"Hi, I'm from ADRA. I'd like to bring you some food because I know you could use it. I’ll bring enough for two weeks for you and your children, and then I'll bring you more. May I?" 

The answer: "Yes, you can! But tell me who you are and why you're doing this." 

"I'm a Christian, a Seventh-day Adventist, and a health care worker, I distribute an all-powerful drug: love!”

This is one of the incidents experienced by Adventist volunteers in Rome during the long weeks of confinement at home. Renato Bozzacchi, from the Adventist church in Lungotevere, is one of the founders of Officina, a volunteer group engaged in social activities for personal support and assistance since 2013. 

Also operating in the capital city is the coordination of ADRA (Adventist Development and Relief Agency) Italia. Together the two charities have offered continuous food aid to a few hundred families--approximately a thousand people--who are unable to buy enough to eat.

ADRA and Officina worked on the preparation and distribution of food parcels in the city of Rome. 

"Our small workshop has been incorporated into a larger one: ADRA!” Bozzacchi says excitedly. 

For several months, Pastor Daniele Benini (who serves the Filipino Adventist community), assisted by Cornelio Lupu (pastor of the Adventist church in Lungotevere) and Mihai Bumbar (pastor of the Romanian Adventist church in Piazza Vulture), organized the distribution of food in the community. Thanks to a valuable service that was rendered by many volunteers, it was possible to help many families in need.

"With a quick word of mouth, several hundred destitute families were selected,”
continued Bozzacchi. “Many of these were ‘new poor;’ those who found themselves in desperate conditions because of the pandemic."

Bozzacchi concluded: "How can one beat the Coronavirus? There are no drugs or vaccines yet. But there are many other 'diseases’ and we should fight all of them with love! This is the turning point. Love is the vaccine for all the evils in the world."

This article was originally published on the Inter-European Division’s news site