GEM to clean up Lonehill

GEM stands for Going the Extra Mile and that’s exactly what David Shields, his partner Camilo Ramada and a number of selfless volunteers do.

After the success of the group’s Melville and Greenside clean-ups, they have teamed up with the Lonehill Residents Association (LRA) to give the suburb a much-overdue makeover.

Click here to read more on GEM.

“It’s completely out of the ordinary what we’ve created, and so it didn’t fit anyone’s kind of box or frame of reference,” said Shields, co-founder of GEM.

“They said ‘it won’t work because there’s no way to extract a big sum of money from it’, and that’s not really why we’re doing it. We’re doing GEM to help people who can’t help themselves and turn that around into saying people will help themselves.”

Residents will join forces with a number of community organisations and volunteers to clean the streets of Lonehill. This will include painting walls, sweeping streets, collecting rubbish and even scraping gum off the pavements. Parents are encouraged to bring their children along to get involved and build a sense of community.

“We’ve had an overwhelmingly positive response from the community,” said Shields.

“From businesses to residents and community organisations at large, everyone has put their hand up to get involved. When civil society, business interests and government agencies join up to make a change, there’s no stopping the train. It’s all or nothing.”

All the tools needed for the clean-up will be supplied, thanks to generous donations from the LRA, the Rawson Property Group, VWD Attorneys, the Douglasdale Police Station, Fidelity Security, Mugg and Bean, Vikrams, the Cape Town Fish Market, Vovo Telo and Levingers Dry Cleaning.

Those who have signed up to GEM will receive 100 GEMS (the equivalent of R100) as a reward for their hard work and dedication to helping the community. These GEMs can be spent on a number of digital rewards such as cellphone data, airtime, electricity and even movie tickets.

The GEM Lonehill clean-up will take place on 23 April from 8.30am to 11.30am. The meeting point will be at the rooftop parking of the Lonehill Shopping Centre.

After all the hard work is done, the community is invited to return to the top parking lot to indulge in snacks, drinks and each other’s company.

GEM will also be collecting clothes, toys and animal food to donate to their partner organisations, so they’re calling on people to donate whatever they feel is relevant.

Details: www.gemproject.org