Earlier this week (and when we luckily had good weather in the Western Cape), we introduced the community of Zola Township in Somerset West to some authentic Thai food as part of our Mandela Day charity initiative. The facilitator of the soup kitchen, Fano Ngcobo, is a beneficiary of FeedSA – a non-profit organisation which we worked with in 2013 when we embarked on an in-store campaign in celebration of Songkran (Thai New Year). R5 of every Songkran meal deal sold went towards FeedSA, and with the support of our loyal customers, we were able to raise over R100,000 for the organisation.
We have aligned ourselves with FeedSA as not only do they have beneficiaries in all of the provinces where we have stores (Western Cape, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng), but they because they have a strong focus on feeding programmes and education within townships for all those who receive no other forms of funding, and for children who go to school with empty stomachs.
Last year was the first time we met with Fano to host a soup kitchen in Zola Township – this was also a relatively new initiative for him – and we fed approximately 250 children. Over the course of the past year, Fano’s soup kitchen has grown and with his guidance we had planned to feed 350 children in the township, however we made so much food that we were actually able to hand out over 450 food portions to children ranging from 2 years old up to teenagers, and even some adults.
Fano has been running soup kitchens since late 2012 and said that a few of his friends who were also running soup kitchens were slowly being forced to stop as they weren’t receiving any funding to sustain the operation. Luckily for Fano, he found the likes of Candice Etberg and Jo-Anne Tooch of FeedSA who took him under their wings and provided monthly funding courtesy of the contributors to their foundation.
“FeedSA is honoured to have been selected by Simply Asia,” said Candice Etberg, one of the founders of FeedSA. “The passion and tenacity towards FeedSA that has been displayed by the staff has been incredible and very heartwarming to see,” Etberg continued. “We are really grateful to Simply Asia for helping us feed hearts, minds and tummies.”
We were very pleased to have the support from one of our beverage suppliers, Peninsula Beverages, who jumped at the opportunity to get involved in this initiative and generously donated cold drinks for all the children to enjoy with their meal. We’d also like to thank the team from our advertising agency, Bittersuite, who were eager to lend a helping hand at this initiative.
Visit the Simply Asia Facebook page to see more pictures of the initiative, or click here to go directly to the photo album.
