One of Klipopmekaar’s valued rooibos clients, BOS Ice Tea, is hoping to serve 10,000 meals to impoverished South Africans now living well below the breadline due to coronavirus-related lockdown. At just 50c a meal, €5000 will feed 10,000 people.
A little bit of context
South Africa has one of the highest levels of inequality in the world, and for all the intended good coronavirus-related lockdown does in stopping the spread of the disease, it pushes the millions living on the breadline into deep poverty.
For those unable to fend for their next meal, the choice of evading an invisible virus with the need to feed their families is an unbearable thought to bare.
Thankfully many caring individuals have picked up the cause to help provide for our less fortunate neighbours.
But there’s a problem
Despite the good intentions of the many independent actors, there’s both inefficiencies in going it alone as well as huge dangers. The inefficiency is the size of projects requires lots of motivated, well-intentioned groups and people working closely together to achieve this goal. The dangers come from working in communities one is not familiar with or does not understand, failing to follow quarantine protocols to keep everyone safe, and failing to ensure the fair and equal distribution of food, which has its own consequences.
Here’s what BOS and partners are doing about it
To negate these challenges and ensure the safe delivery of thousands of meals to those most in need, BOS has partnered with several brilliant organisations to form a food distribution network, The Big Food Drive. They forged relationships with wholesale fresh produce markets and transport companies, to ensure good food is able to be sourced and delivered at the most competitive prices possible, negating markups and inefficiencies.
They’ve partnered with Greenpop, a longstanding environmental NGO, to help advise on good practise, support with staff and transport, and to help facilitate the implementation of community food gardens if they meet the intial fundraising goals.
And finally they have partnered with various CAN networks, (Community Action Networks), especially local Muizenberg CAN, a 100% volunteer-run network of thousands of people working in 70 communities across the greater Cape Town areas. They’ll work to help identify and coordinate with soup kitchens and feeding schemes most in need of the food injection, as well as providing volunteers on the ground to distribute food safely.
And now, the last partner they need is you.
You can join them: All it takes is R10,000 to fund a truckload of food that will provide 1,000 meals. That’s €500 to feed 1,000 people, or 50c per meal. Our starting target is R100,000 (€5,000), which is enough to provide 10,000 meals. The Jeremy Loops team has already contributed R10,000 (€500) to get the ball rolling, putting us 10% of the way out the gates.
With this R100,000 (€5000) sum, they’ll be working with Muizenberg-CAN to ramp up capacity in feeding local townships like Vrygrond, and the greater Muizenberg area, as well as sending food and resouces to CANS further afield as the campaign grows.
Thank you for your support!
Click here to watch Big Food Drive video about this initiative
We’re part of an incredible community and this global crisis has brought people together in ways we haven’t seen for a long time. And with your help, however close or far you are from this crisis in South Africa, we can make a tangible difference in people’s lives.
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