Whether you are a firefighter looking for sponsorship to the world games, a mother with no means to feed her family, business owners who want to keep their patrons safe or a child who wants to learn about being an emergency worker, Sharday van den Berg has a hand in all of it.

Sharday’s charity drives started when she was a member of the Sector 4 Community Policing Forum (CPF) and organised Christmas drives. The CPF would drive through town around Christmas time, handing out sweets and presents to the children they came across.

Eventually she moved on and became part of the Mogale Response Services where she helped to organise school safety visits, sponsorship for the firefighters to go to the Toughest Firefighter Alive competition, as well as training simulations for emergency services.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, she jumped into action to organise and help get funding and donations for their teams to sanitize the buildings and spaces in the community, and help curb the spread of the virus.

Even though she and her family were not immune to the effects of Covid-19, with her husband’s business forced to close during lockdown, she still managed to gather food to feed the hungry.

With the help of Friends of Emergency Services, one of the organisations she is part of, they handed out butternut and cabbage to thousands of people, and continued with food drives for the community during this period.

Unfortunately eventually her family’s medical aid lapsed and as things go, Sharday became very ill.

Every now and again I would feel my heart beating really fast, so on 9 July I went for a check-up,” she said.

She explained that she felt anxious the whole day and at times it felt like her heart was jumping out of her chest. She met doctor Mfundo Mathenjwa in the emergency room and he told her that she needed to come for tests as soon as possible.

He diagnosed her with sinus tachycardia, meaning there is an increase in the rate of electrical impulses arising from the sinoartrial node, also defined as a heart rate higher than 100 beats per minute.

She said that thanks to her amazing doctors and the right medication the problem is manageable, but that further tests are being done as doctors are also worried that something may be wrong with her thyroid.

It feels like I have been to hell and back. This has been a rough few weeks.”

Unfortunately because of the medical aid having lapsed she had to pay for all the tests, doctors’ and hospital visits herself. This has put a great strain on her family and she is now turning to her community to ask them for help.

A BackaBuddy page has been created for Sharday and the aim is to raise R45 000 to cover her existing and future medical costs.

If you would like to make a donation, click here.