On 23rd September 2024, Pisco Sin Fronteras helped a massive 95 families by giving away free wood donated to the organisation by the steel company Aceros Arequipa. The wood given away was wood unsuitable for making modular houses and furniture with, as they were too short, had too many cracks in them or were not the right shape. All in all nearly one thousand pieces of wood, collected from Aceros Arequipa the previous day and also from a reorganisation of the PSF wood yard, were given away in just two short hours. This is how it went down:

At 9am, after the morning meeting our team of seven headed to the vacant corner lot that we had arranged to host the event, to clear out the bits of rubbish, rocks and sadly for me, dog poo! We then headed to the wood yard with TBC, PSF's director and the truck to start loading up wood. we also had our trusty trike, that could also transport about forty pieces of wood at a time. After loading the truck up we headed back to the lot, where people had already started queueing up. We unloaded the truck and started sorting the wood into roughly equal piles of ten pieces. We then took another two trips before the truck was needed at other projects. We had roughly thirty piles ready by 10 o'clock, when we were ready to start.

We brought the "Madera gratis" sign to the lot, where it could be seen by passing traffic and set up a table and chair where Martin, our 18 year old Peruvian volunteer could sit and take down the peoples' name, I.D number and the purpose of their wood collection. We brought out three wheelbarrows with which the volunteers helped the pisqueñans deliver wood to their houses and got started. At first we got off to a flying start, however about fifteen minutes in it appeared we started a little too fast and confusion started to set in as a dozen or so Peruvians were all reorganising their wood, taking it to the waiting moto-taxis or loading it onto the wheelbarrows, making it difficult to tell which wood was taken and which not. Because of this we took a quick break and started to ferry more wood over to the lot using the trike. When we returned the chaos had ended, all of the wood had been safely delivered and we were ready to start again.

The next half hour or so was a little stop-start as we kept running out of wood and had to keep re-stocking, until about 11 o'clock when Amy, the accounts manager got the truck and drove it over to the yard to pick up more wood. After this the wood was flying off the shelves and the big pile of 400 or so pieces of wood quickly vanished in three or four truck and trike journeys. Sadly, as could be expected with this kind of thing, we ran out of wood with a few people left in the queue, which was unfortunate, but we counted ourselves lucky that more weren't left dissapointed. 


The free wood day was an overwhelming success, with nearly a hundred people of this poor and under-priviledged community benefitting from wood that wood that would otherwise have been burned by Aceros Arequipa. The results of the survey were equally encouraging, with the use of wood breaking down as:

Tables- 25

Doors and door frames- 15

Repairs- 15

Chairs- 12

Beds- 8

Garden Enclosures- 5

Animal Enclosures- 7

Other- 6

 I was suprised how many people were using this wood to make furniture. For me this hit home the importance of this project and encapsulated the very purpose of PSF; to help Pisqueñans help themselves. My hope for the future is that the free wood day can become a monthly or even bi-monthly event that will help thousands of Pisqueñans and strengthen Pisco Sin Fronteras' reputation as the caring, resourceful and dynamic organisation that we are. 

 


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