Randridge Mall helps little ones get back to school

RANDPARK RIDGE – Randridge Mall is giving back to the community as they would like to donate 200 backpacks to underprivileged families, filled with stationery for youngsters as they return to school next year.

“We noticed that many families are stating that with the festive season and school season being so close to each other, they can’t afford both. That’s the reason for this initiative. The centre wants to ease that burden for them,” said Landi van Deventer, the head of marketing for Randridge Mall.

The initiative is called, ‘Give them a head start’ where they urge people of the community to donate stationery. They have placed backpacks in the shopping mall and decorated them in the form of a Christmas tree.

Stationery lists have been put together which could be donated. Individuals can drop one item or five into the bag or they can take a pledge and buy/donate the gross amount needed to fill an entire backpack. They currently have a special where you can buy the full list and pop it into the bag for R543.

“I feel children should never need to worry about not having any stationery for school. The idea was a centre management team effort,” said Van Deventer, which began on 1 December and will be running until 23 December.

“I am overwhelmed with the amount of support that we received in the last two days; it’s just been phenomenal!” said an excited Van Deventer.

The display is only used for the people to put the stationery inside the backpacks and then will be equally distributed into all 200 backpacks.

“What we want to do is, we want to challenge companies and see if companies or individuals can pledge to one bag completely.”

Randburg Sun is pleased to announce that it will be donating one backpack to this cause and would like to encourage other businesses in the area to do the same!

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