Lunch for the lonely still going strong, 30 years on

Mgr Kalċidon Vassallo will today be keeping his 30-year tradition of offering a free New Year Day's lunch for the lonely, saying the initiative had nowadays assumed even more importance than in the past. "Unfortunately, over the years, solitude among people has increased. The lunch had started with just four or five guests but this year I am expecting about 20 diners," the 70-year-old Mġarr parish priest told The Sunday Times of Malta. "It all started when I was the Floriana archpriest and had floated the idea of organising a lunch for lonely people who dread this time of the year," he said. Apart from the organisational head­ache, back then the Djakonija Commission – whose role is to serve as the Church's social arm within the community – had raised other doubts, not least the fact that some members were not so keen to stay away from their loved ones on such a special day, he recalled. Though the New Year's Day lunch was discontinued for a while when he was in charge of the Żabbar parish in the early 1990s, the tradition was revived at the turn of the millennium when Mgr Vassallo was transferred to Balzan. "Nowadays, it is a totally different story. Volunteers are very...

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