Ultramarinos Javi is that small shop in the Benimaclet neighborhood, in Valencia, where ‘Camals Mullats’ plays and where you can buy the latest album by Xavi Sarrià as well as seasonal cheese -yes, cheese is seasonal- from La Planet of Xert or real garrofó, from Valencia, not allubion from that frozen one from Peru. Now its owners, Maite and Javi, have become known at the state level because she took part in the massive act of Sumar in Madrid; months earlier, Yolanda DÃaz herself was about to go through the grocery store on a visit to the ‘cap i casal’, which ultimately did not take place for scheduling reasons, but she did personally congratulate them in a phone call provided by Cadena SER . The minister thanked them for having launched, despite being such a small establishment, the initiative of a basic shopping basket at an affordable price: for 29 euros, they offered 28 products from well-known brands (and the one we are talking about here).
But let no one be fooled. Maite and Javi have not done this to appear on TV. Not because their corporate social responsibility departments demand it for a matter of “socialwashing” (social-whitening). Not because they want to get an electoral revenue. They do it because they feel it, because they understand that it is important to collaborate with those around them and in a specific physical space in which they, too, are neighbors. And it is that Maite and Javi, let us not forget, are not the CEOs or similar of a company that has its economic activity kilometers from where they reside; they just run a business in which they make their living. That is why they are interested in and get involved with what is happening around them.
It is not the first nor the last time that they will help the people of the neighborhood. They also sent a cable to two neighbors of Senegalese origin -in an irregular administrative situation- who were left without income to eat or pay rent during the confinement due to the coronavirus pandemic. They gave them food and created a collection to be able to buy one of them a plane ticket to return to Senegal, since he was over 70 years old and in rather deteriorated health (Covid-19 had passed and had left sequelae). Neither in this nor in other solidarity initiatives they do not act alone, but they are accompanied by other small businesses in the neighborhood. We tell it here.
By the way, in the small grocery store -as in so many other places in the neighborhood- it has also been possible to sign against Metrovacesa’s Benimaclet PAI, which provided for the construction of 1,345 homes with towers up to 30 heights, a part in a garden area productive. They would not see the collection of signatures in the supermarket or in the fast food chain on duty.
“We are your neighbors and we give you personal treatment. We encourage social relationships. We collaborate in the activities of your neighborhood. We give life and safety to our streets. Small trade makes us greatâ€. A sign read at the entrance to Ultramarinos Javi at that time, which could well be extended to the rest of the businesses in that and other neighborhoods and towns. How right! They do not invest in advertising -more or less covert- in the media, but there they are; Nor do they hold big press conferences to balance the year in which they announce great benefits, because these result in the reality that surrounds them and most of them are intangible.
If you are from that generation that lost contact with the usual shopkeepers, come back to these small points of resistance that survive among multinationals and aggressive e-commerce. All of them, after all, are Maites and Javis.
