The increase in energy costs, with the high bills weighing on the budgets of families and businesses, threatens to bring
San Patrignano to its knees, the largest recovery community in Europe
forced to deal with a dizzying surge of prices that could push the structure lying on the hills of Rimini to close entire sectors.
The costs of utilities have in fact increased dramatically also for Sanpa, which in recent days received a bill of 730 thousand euros for the gas consumed in the month of August alone.
More than ten times the amount paid for the same period last year, when the bill was 70 thousand euros.
Numbers that risk upsetting the balance - made up of social commitment and redemption through work and the creation of high quality products - reached by the Romagna community born in 1978 and which, for over 40 years, has welcomed boys and girls with addiction problems completely free of charge and without requiring any contribution from their families.
Since its foundation, Sanpa has hosted over 26,000 people, offering them a home, health and legal assistance, the opportunity to study, learn a job, change their lives and fully return to society.
Over time, moreover, 4000 years of prison sentences have been converted into alternative routes to prison, greatly reducing the social costs otherwise borne by the public sector.
Now, having grown in every area, the costs of energy have a huge impact on San Patrignano, so much so as to jeopardize the activities planned for the training of young people engaged in their recovery path.
The fear that reigns in the Rimini structure is that of jeopardizing even the model of economic sustainability that the community has been able to implement, and therefore its ability to accommodate an increasing number of people.
At this time San Patrignano welcomes around 700 young people with addiction problems free of charge and around 225 employees, collaborators and volunteers work in the various internal and external activities of the community.
San Patrignano is currently a social enterprise divided into about 40 training sectors - from kitchens to artisan workshops, from bakery to food, from horse riding to design - for many of which the activity is possible thanks to the use of energy.
It has become very expensive but necessary to support the productive backbone of the community.
The immeasurable increase in energy prices, it is emphasized, today puts in crisis "all non-profit organizations such as San Patrignano that are committed, not to create profit, but to give the opportunity to return to live for thousands of people. For this reason the community asks the institutions and politics to intervene urgently to find solutions that allow San Patrignano, and other third sector entities, to carry out their work ".