The good Samaritan feeding Lisbon

When Hunter Halder lost his job two years ago as a human resources and training manager in a Lisbon-based company he decided he wanted to do something different - something that would make a difference. By then, Portugal's economy was already in free fall; and as unemployment rose sharply, more and more people were being dragged down into poverty, often reaching the point where they were unable to afford to feed their families properly.

"I was out having lunch with my family one afternoon," he explains. "One of my daughters made a comment about how dreadful it was that so much food is thrown away in restaurants. I replied with some nonsense about supply and demand and that this is the system we live in, but what she said stayed with me: she was right, and something needed to be done about it."

The 60-year-old American, who has lived in Portugal for 20 years, began to think about how it could be possible to rescue all that wasted food and to distribute it among the growing numbers of people hit by the crisis. He talked the idea through with his eldest son, whom he describes as "an expert in differentiating between well-intentioned bad ideas, and well-intentioned good ideas. "This could work," his son told him.

And so, in March, Re-Food was born.

She would prefer to die of hunger than ask for help, so I cannot be seen"

Halder started out in his own middle-class neighborhood of Fátima, visiting every restaurant and food shop. He asked them whether they would be prepared to collaborate if he were able to pick up any spare food they had on specific days and at specific times.

"Every restaurant in the world tries to make just the right amount of food and sell it off," he says. "Sometimes they do that - but it's rare. What usually happens is that there is something left over and when we put it all together it's a lot of food and that's the food that the people need."

Riding around his neighborhood on his bicycle, with food piled up in the baskets strapped on to the front and back of his bike, Halder soon began to attract attention. "I launched Re-Food because of the urgency of the crisis. When I began the project, I was alone," he says.

But the idea quickly caught on.

Eighty volunteers now lend him a helping hand, and 40 or so restaurants have opened their doors. Re-Food currently feeds around 200 people a day.

After getting the support of local shopkeepers and restaurants, Halder visited apartment blocks and houses in his neighborhood, asking residents if they needed help with food.

"I met one elderly lady who told me she had no money, and that she wasn't eating enough. But she insisted that she would never tell any of her friends about her situation, that she was ashamed, and would prefer to die of hunger than ask for help. I told her that I would bring her a bag of food each day. She added that this was no good, because people would see me. So she gave me the key to the entrance to her building, and each night when I stop by, I leave the bag hidden, and she then comes down to collect it. Nobody knows about her, but she seemed to symbolize the shame that many middle-class people who have lost their job, or whose pension is not enough, feel about themselves," he says.

For six months Re-Food did not receive any outside funding but in October Halder's project won a competition organized by the Montepio bank to find the best example of community service. The prize was 25,000 euros.

Halder's initiative reflects the tough times that Portugal is going through, and the tougher times that are still to come. The government estimates that the country's economy will shrink 2.8 percent in 2012, while the EU puts the downturn at 3.0 percent, which will make the country the worst performing in the 17-nation euro zone.

Portugal followed Greece and Ireland in needing a bailout and its progress in reducing its public deficit is now regularly reviewed to decide whether or not its next eight-billion-euro loan installment will be cleared. The government also expects unemployment to top 13.4 percent next year. About 700,000 Portuguese are currently without a job, according to official figures, and more than half of them receive no state help, prompting the government to draw up a "social emergency plan" to assist the neediest.

Isabel Jonet, president of the Banco Alimentar Contra a Fome, a nationwide network of food banks run on donations, says that it feeds around 330,000 people - three percent of the population. "The problem isn't hunger per se: it is unemployment and debt. The middle class is disappearing. These are people who never imagined that this would happen to them. They lose their jobs, and suddenly they cannot feed their families. And there is no solution in sight."

In the meantime, Halder says he intends to extend his network in Lisbon, neighborhood by neighborhood, until the entire city is covered.

Halder says that if nothing else, the crisis is bringing about a change in values. "People here are more caring than they were a year ago. We are receiving more donations every week."