A charitable trust underwritten by Fair Cape Dairies has donated R650 000 worth of dairy products to various Cape Flats organisations, including a centre for women and children who are survivors of abuse.
The Fair Cape Cares Foundation says this was done in an attempt to ease people’s anxiety during the protracted coronavirus pandemic. Earlier, the foundation’s focus was on fund-raising for various beneficiary projects, but it has since shifted its gears towards Covid-19 relief measures.
“This year, a big focus of the foundation has been helping vulnerable communities affected by the Covid-19 lockdowns,” says Joel Serman, a trustee of the Fair Cape Cares Foundation. With its roots in agriculture, the foundation is backed by members of the Lourens family, who first started the once small-scale dairy farming operation more than five generations ago.
Besides the Manenberg-based Saartjie Baartman Centre for Abused Women and Children, monetary support was also given to the Atlantic Hope baby sanctuary and Durbanville Children’s Home last year.
Atlantic Hope is a safety house for vulnerable babies while the Durbanville Children’s Home is a 138-year-old child and youth care centre.
As part of its Covid-19 relief efforts, the foundation donated a further R250 000 worth of dairy products to feeding schemes in poverty-stricken communities.
This was done in partnership with the listeners of Pippa Hudson’s show on Cape Talk, a commercial AM radio station. Listeners nominated a feeding scheme to which the Fair Cape Cares Foundation donated hampers.
Also, a Bonteheuwel soup kitchen called Point of Giving received R50 000 worth of dairy products which, Serman believes, “will brighten the start of 2021 for the scheme and its beneficiaries”.
Point of Giving is the brainchild of Iasa Isaacs, who runs the soup kitchen at her own home. In the two years of its existence, Isaacs has found the demand for food to be much greater following the protracted Covid-19 lockdown.
She now feeds up to 250 adults and 150 children per day, and the kitchen continues to rely on donations as well as funds from Isaacs’ own pocket, says Serman.
“This donation of nutritious dairy and fruit juices will go a long way to helping keep the disadvantaged in Bonteheuwel healthy and nourished at this difficult time. This has been a particularly heart-warming and rewarding project at a time when there is so much anxiety.”
