Thanks to Agan Hodzic, who was born in an eastern Bosnian village in 1930, thousands of the poor who are beneficiaries of soup kitchens in Bosnia and Herzegovina will now receive an entire loaf of bread instead of just half a loaf.
Hodzic bequeathed 511,000 euros to the Red Cross of the Bosnian Federation entity and the Muslim Merhamet charity and the only condition was that the money goes to finance public soup kitchens that these organisations have run for decades.
Zilha, a woman who runs a soup kitchen in downtown Sarajevo, said that Hodzic was a frequent visitor to the kitchen and often donated money to the poor.
The downtown soup kitchen started operating in 1992 during the war and is the only place where people without any income, once they are registered, can get a modest daily meal. On average, 1,000 meals are handed out daily.
Hodzic's donation will enable beneficiaries to get milk once a week and some fruit and packages with coffee, sugar and oil.
These funds will be sufficient for the entire year, Zilha explained.
A member of Hodzic's family, Enver Ahmetspahic, said that his path to wealth was painstaking and that he started life in Canada as a lumberjack. In Canada his wealth isn't considered that great but in Bosnia and Herzegovina it is of huge value, he added.