Aid from Manna-Apu nourishes bodies and minds
Manna-Apu, a food charity, looks to meet and support people in significant financial difficulty or at risk of social exclusion. This involves much more than just food baskets.
High-quality food donations for the disadvantaged
Manna-Apu's delivery team gets started at seven in the morning. A group of volunteers sets out to tour partner stores, wholesalers and schools. Food is often prepared or ordered in excess. It remains perfectly edible, and is then donated to Manna-Apu. Volunteers inspect the donations, parcel the ingredients in baskets, and lay them out in front of Manna-Talo in Tuomarila.
Those in need don’t have to get up quite as early. Just call Manna-Apu before half past ten to book a time to pick up a food basket. Booking a time ensures that the day's donations go out to the right number of people. It also avoids the frustration and crowding of queuing. However, no one is turned away from Manna-Talo, even if they have not booked a time – there is always a small buffer in the freezer and dry storage. Everyone gets help.
In addition to food baskets, surplus food is directed to Mannapuoti, the surplus food restaurant at Manna-Talo, and to certain other outreach locations. At Mannapuoti, you shop with a card that is issued by social services or the parish. At the surplus food restaurant, anyone can enjoy an affordable, warm lunch on Wednesdays, prepared by Manna-Talo's volunteer chefs.
Food for the soul, too
When you have lunch at the surplus food restaurant, you quickly notice that Manna-Apu's operations are not just about food aid. The atmosphere at Manna-Talo is all about the community. Its warm atmosphere is the result of the many ways that Manna-Apu helps those in need, not just by providing food. Feeling like you belong and knowing your own capabilities is seen as an important part of comprehensive help.
Manna-Apu's operation includes various hobby groups. Tour groups get to know nearby nature sites and learn skills they can use outdoors. The handicrafts club focuses on various manual skills, and the fishing club, naturally, goes fishing. The food group practises waste cooking, and last year, their cooking was given to rather large audiences, such as at the Espoo Day picnic event and the Night of the Homeless.
Some of the activities are more about knowledge: Manna-Talo regularly organises Finnish language courses and work coaching, such as resume clinics, helping with job applications, and introducing training opportunities. In 2025, five people who took part in Manna-Talo's work coaching found study placements and two found jobs. Of course, everyone receiving work and language coaching at Manna-Talo can also be considered part of Manna-Apu's employment and integration work.
Like one big family
At Manna-Talo, everyone seems to be one big family, partly because the volunteers are often themselves either former or current recipients of its support. And that makes sense: people are prone to being activity and reciprocal, and knowing what it’s like to be on the receiving end helps them meet customers as volunteers.
Sometimes, a volunteer's path leads even further. Manna-Apu's Chief Operating Officer, Risto Lyytinen, says that he ended up as a customer of Manna-Apu after an illness had taken away his ability to work. Receiving food aid with no strings attached stung this man, who was used to working for his keep, so Lyytinen started to secretly clean the courtyard of Manna-Talo. Before long, the employees found out who the mystery janitor was, which started his career at Manna-Apu for real. Today, Lyytinen tells his story with pride.
"Anyone may sometimes be in need of unexpected help. You can seek help when you need it," says Manna-Apu's Executive Director Marianne Maxwell.
Ever-important donations
Manna-Talo distributed a total of 40,871 food baskets last year. There are approximately 3,500 people in need of food aid in Espoo. The majority of Manna-Apu's customers are unemployed, pensioners or students. And to a vast majority of them, food aid is absolutely necessary to survive.
Manna-Apu runs entirely on donations and grants. And in this atmosphere of cuts to government aid and rising unemployment, Maxwell appeals especially to the importance of donations. The funds donated to Manna-Apu go into the costs of collecting and distributing food aid and to organising events that support the community. These costs mainly consist of vehicle and facility maintenance, as the workforce mainly consists of volunteers.
