He’s now trying to assist an early childhood development centre in Honeydew and two informal creche centres with an estimated 200 children. Smanga is assisting with food, clothing, toiletries, and nappies, and every Sunday feeds 120 children who come to the church just for the food.
The need in the area is dire and Smanga tries to put food parcels together for families, as well as help them with counselling and basic upliftment.
But, Smanga can’t do it alone and that’s why he’s approached Hot Cares to assist with food and basic toiletry requirements for the creche, as this is a non-paying facility due to the high unemployment rate of the parents.
The church has previously looked at a variety of sponsors and different ways to raise funds, but hasn’t been successful. Compounding the problem is the fact that it doesn’t own a vehicle.
Fortunately, Smanga has some space at his disposal, as the church property is substantial and has a large area on the property that is available to be converted into a sizeable food garden, which Hot Cares has identified as an area of opportunity.
We’ve been in contact with the Humanitarian Empowerment Fund, which assists in building sustainable communities through economic development and foundation work, primarily with food security. Hot Cares will partner with them to develop the food gardens and provide the necessary training to the centre and community to sustain the gardens. The vegetables will be used to provide ingredients for the soup that they make weekly, as well as provide vegetables for food for the creche and to the community, free of charge.
Further to that, Hot Cares, through our relationship with Blue Ribbon, will provide 100 loaves of bread a week to the creche for a year, valued at R83 000, whilst we’ve also tapped another of our long-standing partners, The Dis-Chem Foundation, to help out.
They have committed to providing a Dis-Chem account to the tune of R6000 a month to ensure that the babies have food, nappies, and basic cleaning materials for the facility for a year.
Rounding things off, Hot Cares will provide approximately R35 000 for the food gardens, covering digging, planting, training the team on sustainability, and monitoring the produce from the gardens on a continuous basis.
How about that?
Something sustainable and a group effort to help this community get back on its feet, whilst supporting the amazing work Smanga does.
If you are a prospective partner of Hot Cares, or if you are in a position to donate towards making a meaningful difference, or have a story to alert us to, or a programme you’d like to partner with Hot Cares on, please get in touch with us by emailing info@hotcares.co.za.
