Building a stronger community one sarmie at a time

The spirit of Mandela Day is closely tied to having a humanitarian approach to those around you.

With this sense of spirit, Linden CPF, together with the non-profit organisation, Let’s Work, endeavoured to prepare 10 000 sandwiches over a span of three days for Mandela Day.

During this time the Linden Police Station hall was filled not only with crates of loaves but also community who volunteered ready to help make a difference.

The initiative started on July 16 and culminated on July 18. But, by the end of the first-day forum chairperson, Annelize Tichauer, said volunteers had managed to prepare a delicious 8 000 sandwiches which equated to about 800 loaves.

Tichauer explained that community members donated jams, margarine and peanut butter while the breads were donated to Let’s Work.

“With this organisation’s help, the bread will go into areas it normally feeds as well as those they do not normally feed. In addition to this, they will also go to underprivileged creches within our precinct.” These loaves will fill the bread bins of families living in Windsor as well as areas such as Westbury, Claremont and Kathrada Park.

Various old-aged homes did their part too, though their residents couldn’t make it to the station they were more than willing to prepare loaves and have them sent to the station.

According to chairperson, the whole idea behind the initiative was to give back to the local community, “Even though the Linden precinct is a relatively blessed one, we still have members within it who are hungry,” she said. Though the idea was to feed members within the community, it snowballed, and they were able to feed communities around them.

Though they had aimed for a successful three days what it ended up becoming was far beyond their expectations. In Tichauer’s opinion, this was a great way for them to show the community that even though the forum’s aim is to fight crime and work against all sorts of horrible stuff, if they stand together as a community there is so much they can do.

Joining in on spreading this togetherness across the community were students from the University of Johannesburg who added their help on the second day.

Another great aspect that came from the sandwich making was that it turned strangers to neighbours, “When the hall was packed with volunteers they were talking and connecting and this allowed for them to get to know each other,” said Tichauer.

She hope the spirit of such events permeated throughout the community and that those who part their hand up to make a difference, continued to put their hand in aid of others.

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