Clean Brakpan celebrates first anniversary with generous vehicle donation

Clean Brakpan is preparing to commemorate their one-year anniversary later this month, and a recent donation of a much-needed vehicle to assist their efforts, now gives the group more reason to celebrate.

The donation is courtesy of Pam Golding Properties in Brakpan. Lisa Jordaan, one of the co-founders of Clean Brakpan, explained the donation came about after staff from the local real estate agency joined the team on a few clean-ups.

“They saw the vital work we were doing and asked how they could assist,” she said.

Lisa told the Brakpan Herald a vehicle is essential to their work.

“We were trying to do this during our jobs – take the guys to the site where they are cleaning, fetch lunch for them, go back, take them back, or take stuff to the dump,” she said.

“It was always a struggle. We are so blessed with Pam Golding, who want to help us in this great way. It’s made a huge difference in helping us function better, and is a very generous donation.”

December 28 will mark a year since the team started cleaning up the town.

“It’s tough-going sometimes putting all this effort in and getting nothing out of it. The money we raise goes 100% in the project,” said Lisa.

“We need a minimum of R5 000 a week to run the team, pay wages, fix machines, petrol for driving and machinery. We have petrol donors, which does help a lot.

“At the moment, ride-ons are giving us problems because we work them hard, and it costs a lot of money for parts. We try and service them ourselves just to save money.”

She explained that funds are low at the moment.

“We have regular sponsors, but they can’t cover monthly costs. The community is amazing but it just doesn’t add up to what we need. Some days we don’t do any work because we don’t have any funds,” said Lisa.

Lisa is proud, however, to share that by the end of the year, the team will have tackled at least 60 clean-up projects.

“It’s pretty amazing for a community project, but it’s not enough. We need at least 10 teams running all the time to really make an impact in this town,” she said.

“As soon as you tackle one project, the other one you did two months ago, is in need again. It’s a continuous thing and there’s just not enough of us.

“We try to do the main areas of Brakpan. We think that’s important, as people are coming into town and we want to make a good impression so people will invest in the town, buy property in the town, more businesses will open, there’s less unemployment – it’s all connected.

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“If things are clean, there’s lower crime, so it’s very important to keep your town clean and maintained. It just really improves everything and lowers crime rates. We understand the link between the two.”

Since their inception, Clean Brakpan has cleaned numerous neglected areas in Brakpan, including various parks and open spaces.

The group was formed with many projects planned for the restoration of the town, wherever it is needed. Clean Brakpan has appealed to all residents and businesses to help make the group a massive movement for positive change as they believe everyone deserves to live in a safe, clean and healthy environment.

“Those who are able to pay just R50 a month, if we have 1 000 people like that, we would be able to run easily every month and really do an amazing job in Brakpan,” said Lisa.

“We really appeal to the community, our project is very important and we’re passionate about it. It’s a real struggle to keep it going and to remain positive and not think are we wasting our time? You go and clean up a place and two days later there’s bags dumped again.

“But we have noticed illegal dumping is much better, the message is getting out there. We do get community support, but we need so much more to really make an amazing impact.”

Clean Brakpan has a regular donation option on their website at www.cleanbrakpan.online

The banking details for donations are: Clean Brakpan, Capitec Business, account number: 1051773016, branch code: 450105, current account.

To get in touch with Clean Brakpan, email info@cleanbrakpan.co.za or call 083 768 5506, 073 335 3947 or 081 060 5329.

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