Jesús Chules de Alba was born in Madrid, Spain, in 1974. He encountered Communion and Liberation during his first year of University.
De Alba graduated in Law and Management of Enterprise at the University ICADE in 1996. In the same year, he, along with three friends, began the charity “Bocatas.” At the beginning, the mode was very simple: go into the city of Madrid on Friday evening and bring food to homeless people who were barely surviving.
It was born by chance, almost unwittingly, without there being a real project or idea behind it. All the work was done by those with only 20 years and was very simple: to live with simplicity the attractiveness lived in the Church through the charism of Communion and Liberation.
Throughout the years of Bocatas, these persons in poverty became their friends and joined their life, without having generated any additional structure for them, if not that of daily and normal life. In these 20 years, this operation has marked de Alba profoundly and even his name has changed: from Jesús de Alba to “Chules de bocatas”.
One Friday in September, de Alba was with the Bishop of Madrid, Monseñor Carlos Osoro, and from there was born an idea to create a house of Bocatas, as a mode that will be effective, yet always simple, to remain in contact with the poor of Madrid, and thus for them to have an opportunity not only to leave poverty, but also to know the joy of living in community.
“To give life to others produces life and causes it to be great”.