Through corporate sponsorship, as well as fundraising initiatives by the pupils themselves and personal donations from pupils and staff, Heronbridge College was able to raise this money to buy the ingredients for food parcels which pupils then packed themselves at the Stop Hunger Now premises in Germiston. A Stop Hunger Now food parcel contains rice, dehydrated vegetables and soy.
After packing the food the pupils then went to Sinethemba Day Care, English Literacy Pre-School, Thabang Day Care and Umthombolwazi Day Care in Primrose to distribute the packages and share a meal with the pre-school pupils.
Ingo van der Merwe who runs the programme at Heronbridge College said that through the programme children get a meal a day that constitutes 75 percent of their daily nutritional requirement. “A teacher saves money by not having to buy food and pays her support staff more,” he said. “Kids that normally would not come to school because their parents have no income can now attend.”
For three years running Heronbridge College has partnered with Heronbridge Training and Resource Centre and Stop Hunger Now. Heronbridge Training and Resource Centre trains pre-school teachers from Diepsloot and surrounds. Typically the programme trains about 16 teachers over two years. They also visit each teacher on site and do tutoring and mentoring. Through the training programme, Heronbridge College comes into contact with more than 30 pre-schools. They chose to support six of the poorest schools in the informal sector of Diepsloot which gets no other outside support.
