From the first minute they arrived at the headquarters of Alcalá de Henares, our volunteers were greeted with the greatest of smiles from the Foundation's users. They had different activities prepared for our volunteers: plant seeds and collect fruits from the fields, feed the chickens and farm animals, participate in a candle-making workshop for the smallest volunteers, and even ride horses! Each of the activities was supervised by the usual users of the Foundation, people with intellectual disabilities who attend this occupational center every day and who gave the best of them in each of the activities. At the end of the visit, volunteers and users could share together a delicious barbecue to close the day in the best way.

In the words of María Sánchez, responsible for communication at the Aldaba Foundation, "For our users, when volunteers come and visit them are a special day. They talk with you and your families, they feel your affection and for them that fact makes you already their friends, wishing you to see us again. As a volunteer told us one day: the hugs that are given these days are those hugs that unite inside. "

María also tells us that the fact that people go to know their daily work and that they are the ones who run the workshops, makes users feel like teachers and this makes them feel important, valued and listened to.

In addittion, we left with the happiness of our volunteers left after spending a day of coexistence and normalization of disability, doing all together, what the Aldaba Foundation would like to call, an emotional volunteer.

Our volunteer Remedios Jimenez, of Legal Advice department, describes his experience in the following way: "My daughters and I spent a day to frame. We are very aware that there are other realities and we could verify in situ the work of the professionals who dedicate their lives and their daily work to make possible the social integration of people with different abilities, providing them with the necessary tools for their personal and work development.

My sincere congratulations to all of them. They welcomed us with open arms. They showed us the wonderful micro world they are building, their workshops to make soaps and cookies, their farm animals, their cats, their horses ...

For sentimental reasons, I was very happy the time we spent in the orchard, digging the earth to plant chives. It was a morning of brotherhood, where we were those of us who really learned something. Also, it ended with a great barbecue ... you can not ask for more. "