Initially, with the support of Agape Hellas and AMG, the former industrial space was transformed. We built a kitchen area for food distribution. The laundry area was equipped with 3 sets of professional washing machines and dryers, with washing time less than an hour. This machinery was offered by the Pentecostal Church of Greece, the Calvary Baptist Church of New York and Agape Greece.
Our kitchen has been professionally equipped.The Christian Steki of Thessaloniki that serves homeless people, and belongs to the Greek Evangelical Church of Thessaloniki, offers us pies, snacks and sweets that their volunteers gather from bakeries and shops in Thessaloniki. We serve them warmed up along with coffee or tea. European Evangelical Churches have occasionally offered large quantities of sugar and tea.
The clothes we give to the refugees come mainly from donations from Churches in Thessaloniki. Ladies from the churches spent a lot of time sorting and tiding clothes on shelves and hangers that other volunteers have bought and assembled.
Just when the Care Center was about to open to the public, we received a very generous and much needed donation of tables, chairs, sofas and cleaning supplies from Acts of Mercy (Antioch Ministries International).
The cleaning supplies that we use are offered by the Christian Steki.
The organization Macedonian Outreach has repeatedly supplied us with juices, milk and other items along with help from their volunteers. The same organization also donated us our freezer.
The International Baptist Church of Brussels sponsored the “Shoe box project” for Children and many boxes were given through our Care Center to refugee families.
The women’s group MIATRIBE from Thessaloniki gave courses on DIY jewelry, providing all the necessary materials, as well.
The organization Samaritan’s Purse has offered us many furniture, curtains and other useful things for us and, more recently, six new sewing machines, various fabrics and threads, in order to begin sewing lessons.
A valuable donation by the Calvary Baptist Church of New York was the purchase of a heat pump to provide hot water to our bathrooms.
A personal friend offered two 50-inch and 40-inch TVs that constantly play the film Jesus in Arabic, Urdu, Farsi and Dari in the central area of the Center and in the waiting room outside the bathrooms. The same person donated a third television that was installed in the children’s playroom projecting Christian programs suitable for Arab children.
An Evangelical Church of Attica donated a large locker cabinet for the volunteers to store their personal belongings. The same church offered a signboard displaying our working hours outside the Center in different languages.
