Volunteers do more for Mandela Day

THE Do More Foundation celebrated its first birthday alongside Madiba’s 100th by bringing more meals, passionate volunteers and practical help to needy communities this Mandela Day.

Last year the organisation fed 7 000 people for Mandela Day. In partnership with its founder, RCL FOODS, the foundation will collaborate with corporate employers to do even more this year: delivering more than 10 500 meals, 115 mini-projects and 10 tons of food donations, facilitated by nearly 1 300 volunteers.

“Partnerships are the lifeblood of the Do More Foundation, and the best part is when our corporate partners’ employees get excited about DOING MORE. Thanks to them, nearly 400 corporate employees in KZN alone rolled up their sleeves to make meals and uplift community facilities,” said the foundation’s programme specialist, Iris Naidoo.

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Taking the partnership model a step further, the NPO hosted a Mandela Day kids event on Friday, 13 July at the RCL Foods national office in Westville. TREE, an ECD training organisation in KZN, showed 100 children of the company’s employees how to make educational toys from recycled materials. The handmade toys were then donated to Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres and crèches in Hammarsdale.

Volunteers from RCL Foods were joined by 100 volunteers from The Hardy Boys, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Eversheds Sutherland. Not only did they help make and distributing 7 500 meals in KZN, they also painted, did a spot of gardening and helped with basic maintenance at beneficiary sites.

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The RCL Foods office in Westville was transformed into a massive food preparation station where close to 100 volunteers assembled to prepare more than 5 000 meals for 24 ECD centres and six community organisations in Hammarsdale. A separate group reached out to the Ukukhanya Kwe Afrika Primary School in Molweni.

“Mandela Day is an opportunity to make a tangible difference to those in need and we love the buzz it creates in our partners’ businesses for weeks before and after the event. Together we really can do more,” said the foundation’s trustee and executive, Warren Farrer.

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