#KZNHeroes: Robin Hood gives 40 tonnes of food to those in need

For the last 16 and a half years, the Robin Hood Foundation has been working to support underprivileged communities across KwaZulu-Natal. But the violence that tore through the province earlier this month was indiscriminate, affecting people from all walks of life.

And in the last two weeks, the foundation has opened its doors up to rich and poor alike and – with the help of KZN Women in Business – distributed some 40 tonnes of food to those in need.

The founder of the Robin Hood Foundation, Cindy Norcott isn’t easily shaken, but when the violence first erupted she completely broke down.

“My immediate reaction was: Is this all in vain?” she told The Citizen this week.

But after sleeping on it and getting in touch with Senta Duffield – the chair of KZN Women in Business, which works with the Robin Hood Foundation – the pair came up with a plan of action.

The violence saw billions of Rands worth of stock looted, the supply chain temporarily cut off, stores across the province either unable or unwilling to open their doors and – in some instances – racial profiling preventing those in need from being able to access essential goods and services. This, in turn, gave way to widespread temporary food shortages across the province.

Hunger is an issue that’s always been close to Norcott’s heart and their first priority was trying to source food to distribute. But this would prove easier said than done in the beginning.

“When people are in a time of survival, they can’t think about sharing and so many people said no,” Norcott said, “But then the local supply chain started kicking in again and we could start getting food from local farmers”.

Norcott and Duffield combined their networking skills and managed to rally the troops and distribute 40 tonnes of food – all from Norcott’s own garage. This after they were forced to empty out their storage units in nearby Westmead for fear of being looted.

While many of those they’ve been helping are the poor and indigent, Norcott said some were indeed also affluent people who were elderly or sick and couldn’t stand in the long queues outside the handful of stores that were open.

“Everyone is our community now,” said Duffield.

She explained how they had dropped off food for three students who couldn’t leave their residence because community patrols were racially profiling them, as well as for a security guard who had got stuck inside a business premises and couldn’t cook for himself.

“A lot of it’s also gone to old age homes and orphanages,” she said.

Businesses across the province have also come on board to help. Some of the produce the foundation and KZN Women in Business managed to rally together has been donated to the team at 9th Avenue Waterside restaurant in the harbour area, and the chefs there have been cooking up litres of soup which they’ve been dropping off at organisations in and around Durban.

Head chef Wesley Aucamp said they were happy to help.

“It’s imperative that we all come together as a community and we help each other out. And that was the biggest thing for us – to give back to the community and help in whatever way we possibly could,” he said on the sidelines of a drop at the Denis Hurley Centre this week.

Rodney Perrier, the director at the centre, said he and his team had been overwhelmed by the generosity they had experienced during this time.

The centre – which last year served a staggering 170 000 meals to homeless people in the city centre – was forced to shut up shop for several days due to the violence. But they were back up and running this week, and had already been donated four tonnes of produce from a local supermarket too.