Europe
The first European food bank was founded in France during 1984. Similar to the UK, they have become much more common within continental Europe since the crisis that began in 2007, and especially since austerity began to take effect from late 2010. In Spain, demand for food has been such that some have resorted to extra-legal methods to acquire it; in August 2012 the "Robin Hood" mayor Sánchez Gordillo led raids where food was forcibly removed from supermarkets, and later given to food banks. The number of food banks has increased rapidly even in Germany, a country that has weathered the crisis relatively well, and has not needed to implement severe austerity. In 2012, professor Sabine Pfeiffer of Munich University of Applied Sciences said there has been an "explosion" of food bank usage.
Read more about this topic: Food Bank
Famous quotes containing the word europe:
“In everyone’s youthful dreams, philosophy is still vaguely but inseparably, and with singular truth, associated with the East, nor do after years discover its local habitation in the Western world. In comparison with the philosophers of the East, we may say that modern Europe has yet given birth to none.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In Europe life is histrionic and dramatized, and ... in America, except when it is trying to be European, it is direct and sincere.”
—William Dean Howells (1837–1920)
“You can always tell a Midwestern couple in Europe because they will be standing in the middle of a busy intersection looking at a wind-blown map and arguing over which way is west. European cities, with their wandering streets and undisciplined alleys, drive Midwesterners practically insane.”
—Bill Bryson (b. 1951)