Over 600 hampers collected for Christmas drive
Each hamper is filled with food items such as beans, rice, sugar, mealie meal, soup, tinned food and biscuits
ELEVEN schools and one crèche benefited from Operation Anti-Freeze’s Christmas hamper drive this year.
A total of 611 hampers were collected during the drive. These were handed out to the schools, four of which are in Kempton, including the crèche.
Each hamper was filled with non-perishable food items, such as beans, rice, sugar, mealie meal, soup, tinned food and biscuits, as well as toiletries, such as toilet paper and soap.
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The hampers were distributed to the schools in early December before they closed, to ensure the children had something to eat over the holidays.
“Most children look forward to the school holidays, but for these children the holidays are a time of going hungry,” Hilary Tolmay, project co-ordinator and fund-raiser, said.
The schools are part of a programme run by Anti-Freeze, which supports these schools and the crèche by providing 500 food parcels to the learners every month.
“These children have been identified by their teachers as coming from very poor households that are in dire need of assistance. We also supply sandwich spreads such as peanut butter, jams and mayonnaise as well as fruit and vegetables when possible.”
This food is then used by the schools to help them provide lunch for these children.
“For some of the children the meal they get at school is the only meal they will have for the day. In a lot of cases, these children also do not eat from the Friday before the weekend until the Monday when they return to school. A hungry child cannot concentrate or study and is thus unable to reach his or her full potential,” Tolmay said.
The organisation also gave out hampers to people at an informal settlement in Bredell and to a number of other families around Kempton.
Anti-Freeze also held their annual Christmas soup kitchen on December 7, where they were able to feed and hand out food parcels to 1 000 people.
Santa Claus gave the children a wonderful surprise when he gave all 400 of them balls as Christmas presents.
“For many of these children the ball they received will be the only gift they get this Christmas. We would like to say a big thank you to Hysa (Pty) Ltd who kindly sponsored the balls and to all our volunteers, donors and to everyone who supports our projects, thank you for helping us to fight hunger and feed hope,” Tolmay said.
