Covid-19: Urgent plea to raise funds to feed starving South Africans

According to the results of the recent Human Sciences Research Council study on the impact of the Coronavirus, 24 percent of South Africans have no money to buy food. This number increases to 55 percent in the informal settlements.

The required physical distancing needed to curb the spread of the virus places further logistical challenges on NPO feeding schemes in terms of meal preparation and distribution, but one partnership is addressing this while meeting a R10-million target to feed South Africa’s destitute.

Gift of the Givers has teamed up with food suppliers, Retort Food Company (REFCO) to prepare and distribute fully-cooked, nutritious meals with an extended shelf-life.

These ‘heat, ready-to-eat’ meals, which reduce the need for communal cooking, and mitigate infection by transference, have been distributed in the past two weeks – but the need just keeps growing.

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“Each meal costs R6 for an adult serving, R5 for a child’s serving, and we aim to raise in excess of R10 million so that we can provide more than 1.5 million meals over the coming weeks,” explained Scott Pitman, Managing Director of REFCO.

“Understandably this is an incredibly tough economic period, but the hardest hit are those who were already struggling before the lockdown. We are calling on anyone (corporates and individuals) to donate whatever they can towards this initiative so that no South African is left hungry.”

Covid-19 is going to leave a lasting negative impact on our poor. Going forward, we intend to dedicate a portion of our available manufacturing capability to continue to produce affordable, shelf stable, nutritious meal components for the Gift of the Givers Foundation’s food support initiatives, Scott Pitman

Doctor Imtiaz Sooliman, founder of Gift of the Givers, said in a statement that the organisation’s toll-free lines were ‘flooded’ with requests for food.

“The callers are from every corner of the country and the pleading is incessant, they have to feed a hungry child, a baby, or someone ill,” he said. “They don’t have income, won’t be getting paid, are not collecting UIF, and probably don’t have a job to go back to. The desperation, the insurmountable grief, is heart-rending.”

REFCO provides safer and more nutritious meals which are protein-enriched using a retort cooking method. The sterilised cooked product is packed into multilayer packaging which means each meal is shelf-stable for six months. These easy-to-carry food pouches can be easily distributed, and taken home for eating without the need for refrigeration.

The focus will be on providing chicken stew and samp and beans to supplement Gift of the Givers meal parcels which are high in carbohydrates.

The first phase of this initiative has raised more than R1.2 million, with the initial order of 35 000 nutritious meals dispatched on April 24. However, more contributions are needed to reach the required R10 million target.

To donate to this cause, contact the Gift of the Givers toll-free number on 0800 786 911 for banking details.

For more about the Gift of the Givers Foundation, click HERE or for more about REFCO and to view/share the video on the feeding programme, click HERE.