This ‘sleigh’ is thea Dl Fouché Association Christmas Drive Truck which has been in operation for the past 6 years, this December being the seventh year.
The Christmas Drive is an initiative started and run by Liezel Oosthuizen and Arlette Botha of the community of Dal Fouché.
Each year, they get donations of toys, sweets and food from the communities of Springs as well as various companies and organisations.
They then organise all the donations into Christmas packs for children, each has a toy and some sweets in it. They will give home made biscuits to the people at old age homes as well.
“Between the 20th and 24th every year, we drive the truck around town. We do give some of the donations to children’s homes, but mostly we focus on Geduld. We drive the whole of Geduld and stop at every house, giving each child a Christmas pack,” says Liezel.
Most of their donations come from the community and their families and friends.
“We do get a lot of help from the Toy Run which is held every November and we get donations of sweets from Smiley Sweets. We have a lady at a retirement home who also knits us a lot of toys which we give to the babies,” Liezel says.
Last year, the drive gave away 2980 gifts to underprivileged families.
“This year has been more difficult to get donations, we are aiming for about 2000. We didn’t get a lot of food donations this year though. We only have enough this year to give 24 families 1 meal, which really isn’t enough,” says Arlette.
On December 20, the lit up and colourful ‘sleigh’ along with Santa and all his helpful elves take to the streets for the four day drive to spread Christmas joy to the communities of Springs.
