ITALY
Give Your Grandparents the Gift of a Book

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In the wake of the #io leggo perché initiative, aimed at expanding and enriching school libraries around Italy, the parish priest of St. Peter the Apostle Cathedral Parish in Treviso, in collaboration with our FSP Book Center in that city, decided to raise awareness throughout his parish and its various catechetical groups concerning the importance of reading by promoting a project entitled, Regala un libro a un nonnonino (Give a book to your grandfather/grandmother). The initiative’s point of reference was the biblical text found in the Gospel of Luke: “An angel of the Lord came to them…”, accompanied by the invitation to everyone to be an angel toward the elderly and lonely, especially in this time in which the rampant spread of Covid-19 has left some senior citizens, alone in their homes, more isolated than ever from family and friends.

In the light of this, our sisters of Treviso set up a Christmas book display in their Center this year, featuring titles that would be interesting to senior citizens and encouraging the Center’s customers to feel free to choose other books they thought would be appropriate gifts for seniors. The books the customers purchased were left in the Center, accompanied by a message of best wishes on the part of each donor. Volunteers from the parish delivered the gifts to elderly people in their own homes or in private and public health care facilities. The initiative, a unique way of celebrating Christmas, helped its participants feel close to one another in this time of social distancing by spreading a spirit of communion and fraternity.