All profits from MyConvenience shop in Qormi go directly to help Puttinu Cares Foundation

---

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. When it opened at the end of 2019, this shop was our 60th outlet in 10 years. Owner director Ivan Calleja shared his hope that this will help fund the maintenance of apartments in Sutton, UK, hosting Maltese cancer patients and their families.

Mr Calleja had himself experienced the turmoil that cancer brings with it, when it 2008, 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 just 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.

“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 was 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 at https://puttinucares.org/ on phone numbers +356 9967 2790, info@puttinucares.org or the Puttinu Cares Facebook page.

This article first appeared on Times of Malta.