Denis Hurley Street Lit vendors show their gratitude for ongoing support
.The team of 15 men and women book vendors all at one time or another have lived rough on the streets and are all currently formerly unemployed.
THE Denis Hurley Street Lit Durban vendors, supported by the Booksellers of Mzanzi, held a small private, 10 person ceremony in the St John’s Boardroom, giving thanks to key stakeholders and partners who had helped and supported them, especially over the lockdown.
Now that the vendors are able to trade again, they wanted to give thanks to all the people who have supported the team.
As large gatherings are not possible at this time, hand painted placards represented the various partners, donors, friends and associates who were not able to be physically present.
These were displayed on the boardroom walls.
The short ceremony gave thanks to the many men and women who had supported the group during the past few months, in particular St John’s, where the book storage is housed, the SAB Foundation, the Denis Hurley Centre, Micromega Publications, Anivesh Singh and Kiru Naidoo, through their Made in Chatsworth website for online book sales, Devi Munien, the vendors’ business coach, and Vuleka Centre, which accommodated five of the vendors during lockdown.
Venue partners (KZNSA Gallery, Berea Centre, Pick n Pay Hyper by the Sea, Dr Singh’s VetCare in Sherwood, Waste Centre, Westville Mall, represented by Rowena Govender from Pick n Pay, were also applauded for providing venues for the vendors to trade.
The vendors wanted to show their thanks in a tangible way, so the gifted St John’s with a ‘Gratitude Garden’ as a token of their appreciation.
Tropical Garden Nursery in Sherwood supported the project with plants, and Recovery 911 gifted the project with wooden features made from tree trunks.
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In recent weeks, the vendors have been sorting their book storage, and refurbishing the garden, which they wanted to show to the partners present at the ceremony.
While they have not been working, they have also been sorting through all the donated books and have created a storage facility which now resembles a library, with separate fiction and non-fiction rooms, and a sorting area.
This allows them to easily sift through the books and respond to individual requests, and genre-specific books which was not easily done before.
The team of 15 men and women book vendors all at one time or another have lived rough on the streets and are all currently formerly unemployed.
The Denis Hurley Street Lit vendors in partnership with the Booksellers of Mzanzi supports them to earn a living from selling second-hand donated books at venues in and around Durban.
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