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Yes, the doctors need masks and drugs, the sick require food, the dead accumulate in the morgues and it turns out that our business fabric is frozen ... But we have to shoulder our shoulders. "That is why we get involved in this," says Jesús de Prado .

When he saw the tsunami called coronavirus coming, this 37-year-old from Madrid sent an email to the mail from the cabinet of the Minister of Health. He put the 10 trucks and 60 vans of his firm Spartan Logistics, all of them armored, at the disposal of the fight against the covid-19 . "And it's not that we lack work," he says, "because we make high-value shipments, armored, for technology companies, and that hasn't stopped ... But we saw that we could help, and the little you can give you than to contribute it ".

Something similar happened to Jorge Blas, a 33-year-old man from Madrid who is a member of the Grosso Napoletano pizza chain. " We started to hear that with the peak of patients in the hospitals there were many cafeterias that had closed , that had food supply problems ... So we got down to work."

In his case, the business itself remained like almost all of society, frozen, confined. Dead: "We had to close our seven establishments and we made an ERTE to 95 employees ... But we left open the workshop where we make the dough, and five workers, for home service , which the Government does allow us to do, and also for hospitals: you have to do what you can do. "

With this check, Blas sends about 60 pizzas to Madrid hospitals every day, and now also to a network of families without resources served by Cáritas : "This allows you to continue operating even a little bit, and at the same time you make a brand and keep active" , bill.

I can afford it, and it is true that it is a special moment and we must help

Javier de Prado

With his three-axle armored trucks, Jesús de Prado has supplied the famous IFEMA field hospital with PPE and drugs , and has transported some private donations: for example, "50,000 masks donated by [journalist] Cristina Tárrega". De Prado keeps one of his employees on the payroll, he says, only for those shipments: "I can afford it, and it is true that it is a special moment and we have to help."

It is the solidarity economy, almost of war, arisen in full combat against the Covid-19. And not only the big firms, which have turned to take advantage of the, let's say, reputational possibilities of the situation: from McDonalds to Inditex, from El Corte Inglés to Ikea. Also smaller companies, tiny in relation to the giants with huge publicity items and foundations, have done the same thing as the supportive neighbor of the second: put a sign in the elevator of 'I help you if you need me' .

And not only them: there is, for example, Carol, from the Association for the Liberation and Animal Welfare, who welcomes in her shelter of Camarma de Esteruelas (Madrid) cats and 'homeless' dogs welcomed in Ifema, and of those admitted by coronavirus : "You don't know the situations I'm seeing ... I picked up a pit bull wandering down the street and it turns out it was from a woman with a covid-19 who had taken the ambulance ... I put it on the internet and his nephew answered. Apparently, the woman had left the door open at home ... Tremendous. "

Bringing cocktails of drugs to Ifema

Jesús de Prado got up one morning and made Spartan Logística, which he hoped to bill five million this year, available to fight the disease. "They put me with the General Deputy Directorate of Pharmacy and asked us to bring cocktails of drugs to the ICUs of Ifema. We also took about 100 electric beds from private centers and special education centers, and also respirators ... We even called the chief from the office of Isabel Díaz Ayuso to thank us. "

In addition, he says, "112 also called us to send drugs, hydroalcoholic gels and PPE to the Institute for Comprehensive Safety Training in the Community of Madrid, to take them from there to hospitals and local police centers ... We also carry 150 coffins from funeral homes, to the City of Justice ... Anyway, we do what we can, what they ask of us. "

It was on Saturday, March 14, with the state of alarm falling on all of us, when Jorge Blas saw clearly that he had to close his seven stores in Grosso Napoletano, "and look, this year we planned to open another four, and one in Valencia" . "But we understood that we could help." He put 95 workers in an ERTE and left five in the workshop.

"We started supplying hospitals, and things started to grow when many other businesses joined and we founded the Food4heroes platform ." Thanks to it, dozens of catering companies donate food daily to the sick and health workers of Madrid.

Carol's perspective of Alba Animal Shelter doing extra hours to collect pets is much more emotional. "Ufff, the one we are involved with these days," picks up the phone to EL MUNDO after picking up the cat from a coronavirus patient, "an 80-year-old man whose wife died and he has to be hospitalized."

Their first solidarity contributions to the crisis consisted of taking in dogs "from people who live on the street and could not go to Ifema because they were not allowed to enter with these animals there." Then sick animals began to arrive, including "two gages of a dead man, who were unattended . "

"And you see everything, and that not everyone is so supportive. Here a lady came that her husband was admitted, with a respirator, she had to be admitted, and called the residence where they usually left their pet and they were told that absolutely, that the dog could have coronavirus and they did not catch the animal ". It didn't matter. Carol took care of him in his establishment, with capacity "for about 20 dogs and 15 cats", another type of Noah's ark in the flood of Covid-19.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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