If you are passing through Luqa Road in Qormi, you might want to drop by the Convenience Shop for your daily needs where all profits from your purchase will go towards Puttinu Cares.
The shop is the chain’s 60th outlet in 10 years. Owner director Ivan Calleja hopes it will help fund the maintenance of apartments in Sutton, UK, hosting Maltese cancer patients and their families.
At the moment, Puttinu Cares owns 19 apartments and rents another six in Sutton, which mainly accommodate those receiving treatment at the Royal Marsden Hospital.
Rent and maintenance, which includes insurance, local taxes, utility bills, internet services and a Maltese telephone line in each apartment costs €250,000 a year.
Puttinu Cares is now looking into building or purchasing apartments in central London to accommodate most of the Maltese treated in the UK. The total cost of the project is expected to reach €35 million.
Mr Calleja has himself experienced the turmoil that cancer brings with it. Eleven years ago, he lost his wife Sandra, then aged 36, to a brain tumour.
Any such diagnosis shakes the patient’s family to the core, recalled Mr Calleja, whose children were back then aged three and eight. While he experienced such challenges as a husband, it was only once he started visiting young cancer patients that he learnt about the heartache of parents who receive devastating news about their children.
Puttinu Cares is now looking into building or purchasing apartments in central London
“When they receive the news, life as they know it is put on hold. They have to drop everything, with some even losing their jobs as they would have to travel with their children abroad for treatment.”
Basic necessities, such as food and accommodation, would be a big headache for these parents, had it not been for Puttinu Cares’ support, he added.
“In a way, the social enterprise is part of Sandra’s legacy. Through the shop, her memory will remain alive,” he says.
Mr Calleja explains that while the brand supported various NGOs and vulnerable people with yearly donations, it had felt the need for something that was more long-term and sustainable.
The shop was furnished and completed by various people who provided their services or products at cost or for free.
At the end of the financial year, the Convenience Shop for Puttinu Cares Ltd will cost its gains and losses, with all profit being donated to the foundation.
Mr Calleja, who has just been awarded the Worker of the Year National Award for 2019, called on fellow businesspeople to embark on similar social ventures.
Clients who spoke to The Sunday Times of Malta said that although they lived close to a grocery store, they preferred walking further and buying their food from the Convenience Shop for Puttinu, knowing that their money is supporting the foundation.
More information on how to help Puttinu Cares is available on phone numbers 7964 7948, 7970 7318, football@puttinucares.org or the Puttinu Cares Facebook page.
Donations of €6.99 can be made on 5061 8939, and donors can also call on 5160 2007 to give €10, 5170 2006 to give €15 and 5180 2008 to give €25.
The Convenience Shop in Luqa Road, Qormi. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli