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TR Three times, the Mannheim parking lot operators supported organizations and projects in the Rhine-Neckar region with monetary donations to cover existing needs.
"Our aim is to support concrete and tangible causes. We also decide on the recipients of donations according to this principle," said Carsten Südmersen, Managing Director of Mannheimer Parkhausbetriebe, adding: "Another criterion is the location. As a Mannheim-based company, we earn our money in the region. So it makes more than a little sense if some of it stays here and benefits organizations in the region.
The first donation took Managing Director and authorized technical representative Marcus Springer to "Freezone" in Mannheim's Quadrat J 7. Andrea Schulz and her team have been helping young people there since 1997. The service is aimed at teenagers and young adults between the ages of 12 and 25. Many of them are at risk of homelessness or are already homeless and have moved the center of their lives to the streets.
Help is offered in three areas: In the daytime offer, young people find a place to rest and relax, to switch off and eat, to shower and do laundry. The "StreetNight" service offers six sleeping places for young people who, for example, can no longer return to their parents' home or have problems with social integration. And the third service, "Street School", offers the opportunity to obtain an extracurricular secondary school leaving certificate with the help of volunteer students, teachers and lecturers.
Marcus Springer and Markus Olschewski were then on the road in Schwetzingen with the second donation check for €1,000. Alexander Schweitzer happily accepted the donation at the "Appel+Ei" food store. As the full-time manager of the Caritas and Diakonie facility, he "runs" the store all year round together with 33 volunteers. Deliveries of goods from 33 food markets and 9 bakeries in the region are distributed to around 2,500 customers. "We currently have five to ten new beneficiaries every week," explained Schweitzer during the interview. Not only pensioners, the unemployed and the homeless are among the customers, but more and more single parents, students and families whose regular income from work is below the respective net limit are also taking advantage of the offer. "The need has increased in recent years. Unfortunately, we experience this every day in our food bank," concludes Schweitzer.
The third and final donation, amounting to €600, went to Sinsheim. The new skate park in the outdoor area of the municipal youth center with its enclosed "bowl" (i.e. a kind of tub within the facility) is unique in the immediate and wider area and is very well received by interested young people. Only the lack of lighting puts an end to the fun quite early in the day, especially in the dark winter months. "We are all the more pleased that the donation will enable us to install lighting so that young people can also skate in the evening hours," says Ute Krüger-Rieth, contact person at Stadtwerke Sinsheim.
Mannheim, 21.12.2023
Carsten Südmersen
Tel. 0621/ 15 895 - 57
At "Appel+Ei" (from left to right): Marcus Springer (MPB), Alexander Schweitzer (food bank), Markus Olschewski (MPB)