JULY 2026 - Monthly Newsletter

At Wave in July 2026, we served 1,674 hot meals, welcomed 35 new arrivals, charged 140 phones and power banks, ran 181 showers, washed 76 laundry loads, and distributed 39 hygiene packages and 83 clothing items.

 

The total population we supported this month was 858.

 

Numbers and operations

Following the same calmer trend as June ‘26, in the past month of July at Wave we have seen a decreased daily attendance, resulting in -30% of the total distributed meals, compared to the previous month of June. During last summer we witnessed a similar decrease in number, as a result of a higher demand in the region for seasonal jobs in hospitality and agriculture. This has been confirmed by the conversations we had in our space with some community members, who are now able to come to the centre only one day per week on Sundays, while others might have relocated to some touristic locations to work in hotels and restaurants and cannot visit Wave at all. This trend has also been confirmed on a regional level by talking with our partner NGOs in Northern Greece, who are witnessing a similar reduced demand for their services as well. We believe the numbers will go up again around the end of August and September.
Nevertheless, the daily attendance in our centre has been between 40 to 70 people per opening day, which is comparable to the numbers registered at Wave up until the big increase in community members of last December ‘25. Our centre is calmer, but the numbers are in line with the capacity of our space.
As heatwaves repeatedly flood Europe and Greece, sanitation services have been a priority during the hottest months of the year. Despite the general lower attendance, we have registered a similar number of showers and laundry cleaned in July, compared to the already hot month of June. We are thankful to Sea Punks, who provided us some years ago with a container converted into a shower facility: during the hottest days, having an evening shower is a great relief for some community members, who otherwise would not have access to any shower facility.

 

Resuming hot meals distributions

As the community centre has a lower number of visitors, around the 20th July we resumed distributing hot meals inside the space, at the same time continuing to offer a takeaway meal to everyone to take home with them. When we stopped serving food inside the community space in December ‘25, the decision was taken as the high number of daily visitors made the operations unsafe for the limited space inside our community centre. We are very happy that we are able to resume the distribution of freshly cooked meals: we believe it’s one of the most important traits of our community centre, a point of social interaction where everyone can access a nutritious meal in a welcoming environment.