Dale Bannatyne writes:
Over the last few years a few ordinary citizens took up the challenge to make a small difference to our fury friends by dedicating our Mandela 67 Minutes of Change to the SPCA.
In the first year we started off with a ‘think big’ policy and wanted to hit a target of 678kg bags of dog food for the SPCA to relieve some of the financial burden they experience on a daily basis.
Once we had reached out to friends, family and businesses in the area we found ourselves delivering, in three bakkies on Mandela Day 2013, 1 394kg of dog food, some cat food and blankets – exceeding our target by a massive 858kg.
Last year we set out to try and get to 2 000kgs of dry dog food for the SPCA. With the help of all the kind people who donated, time and money (let me remind you that these are ordinary people with massive hearts), the Witbank Biking Community, and the animal loving public, we managed to get three full bakkie loads of food into two stock rooms at SPCA. We delivered a total of 1 273kg of dog food, 85kg of cat food, about 20 tins of food, bags and bags of kitty litter and more than 70 blankets in three bakkies, many cars and an amazing number of motor bikes. We also left more than 2 000kgs of food at Pet, Pool and Garden Centre for the SPCA to help themselves whenever the need arose.
This would not have been possible were it not for the caring members of the public who helped both financially and with their time. We were lucky to have generous sponsorship come in from companies in Witbank and all over the country and as always the Pet, Pool and Garden Centre went above and beyond to help with huge discounts and by matching some very large corporate donations.
Well done everybody and thank you very much.
The small effort we put in over the last two years has paid off, in ways that we can only imagine for these animals! It also gave the centre reprieve to attend to the many animals that had not yet made it into the centre. This left me with a bit of a lump in my throat and I decided to try and head up another drive to collect animal food to help these wonderful people who are doing incredible things at the SPCA.
This year I am not going to put a figure of how much food I would like to get in as I have come to terms with the fact that I have shamefully underestimated you all; two years in a row now. I am however going to do my best to fill the SPCA storage rooms and have some food stored for the year to come.
So this is me, coming ‘Hat in Hand’ for those fury friends – many of whom are probably having a more miserable time than we are in this terrible cold.
Let’s rally together for the animals and try to better last year’s donations of food to the SPCA.
We would be extremely grateful for any donation you are able to give or get others to give. Feel free to contact me on Dale@struction.co.za in this regard or if you have any suggestions/queries.
We will be making our delivery to the SPCA on Saturday, July 18, Mandela Day from Pet, Pool and Garden Centre so that you can be involved. Why not get on board and get involved with this amazing project? And, then, whilst you are about it why not come and help us with the deliveries on the day? It will make your heart swell.
You can go into the Pet, Pool and Garden Centre and donate food from there. We are hoping to put up an SPCA collection bin in the very near future. You are also more than welcome to donate any other bags of food. Please give me a shout and I’ll try to arrange to come and collect from you.
