Page 36 - Book about Friendship and Future.Stories of Volunteers.

Elena Trushichkina

Human Resources Business Partner
Fast-food Restaurants, Kaluga

There Are Various Sorts of Pasta…

The desire to help is not always sufficient for taking action, at
times one needs to confront something in order to start.
And this is exactly what has happened to me. I always had
the intention and desire to do something beneficial, in others
words – to help others, but “never got around”. Once, my daugh-
ter approached me with a request to help her classmate. I learnt
from her about an accident in this large family: one of the kids
got severe burnt when playing in the countryside. He got trans-
ported to the Regional Burn Center for a long-term therapy.
However, this brought a severe financial challenge for his
large family: regular visits to the hospital cost a lot and the family
needed aid.
It became important for me and I approached the Director of
the restaurant with the question, “How can we help?” We did not
think too long. We decided to deliver some essential products,
that were universal and had a long expiration period. We bought
some butter, sugar, pasta, and other products and headed to the
indicated address.
On the way there I felt fear and uneasiness, I had doubts. It
was not clear whether we would be welcome, whether the prod-
ucts would be consumed, whether they needed them at all.
And on that day, I got an answer on how severely they needed
help, and how important it is not to contemplate but just help…
We met a friendly lady in a tidy apartment. While we were talking
with her a boy of around 5 years old was taking the bags to the
kitchen… Can you imagine my surprise when he asked his mum
why we had brought them worms?!
It turned out that due to the difference in price for various
sorts of pasta (‘penne’ pasta is a little cheaper than ‘fusilli’, the
corkscrew shaped pasta), his mother was always buying the kind
that was cheaper, so he simply had never seen such pasta…
I understood then that we were doing the right thing and the
help was needed and not useless. In the age of high technolo-
gies, it is not acceptable for a child not to know how pasta looks
like…