Ira’s ‘soup’er soup challenge!
Ira is a joyful, inquisitive, and clever young lady who is passionate about helping the people of the community she lives in.
A very wise nine-year-old once said, “You are never too young to make a change in someone’s life.”
Ira Ramadhan, who will turn 10 in August, began her charitable adventure in February when her school’s class assignment was to go out and interview someone in the community who is making a difference. While the other youngsters imagined lawyers, physicians, or cops, Ira imagined Weltevreden Park’s very own fairy godmother, Glynis Rozendo.
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Ira had an overwhelming need to step up and help the WelBeing Foodbank feed the less fortunate after an afternoon of chatting and going through the various procedures Glynis takes to filter through all the donations made to the food bank. The pair came up with a wonderful idea.
“Mrs Rozendo asked me if I would be up to collecting 701 packets of soup for her 71st birthday this year,” explained Ira. Once the seed was planted, her passion for charity not only grew but blossomed!
“Ira collected over 500 packets of soup within a week,” exclaimed her mother, Tasha.
Ira went above and beyond to gather cup-a-soups, 2-minute noodles, and powdered soups for her trip. She even wrote a letter to her neighbourhood group, requesting that her neighbours contribute whatever they could to her worthwhile cause. She further sweetened the deal by holding a raffle for those who donated, with the winner receiving a box full of delicious ice creams from her very own ice cream store, Ira’s Ice Cream, which she runs in the afternoon for the youngsters in her community.
Watch as Ira creates funny puns to catch donators’ attention:
“I created my ice cream shop because I noticed that all the sweet shops are very far away and thought it would be nice for the kids in my neighbourhood to be able to get yummy ice cream close by,” elaborated Ira.
Ira decided to raise her initial objective of 701 packets of soup to a daring 7 001 packets once she reached her target amount.
So far Ira has reached a total of 2 421 packets of cup-a-soup, 108 packets of powdered soup, and 1 093 packets of noodles. Ira’s ambitions for donating to the less fortunate do not stop at soups though, she’s also decided to run a dog food drive for the benefit of Community Led Animal Welfare.
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“I want to collect 1 000 cans of dog food for my tenth birthday this year,” elaborated Ira.
Ira wants to be a microbiologist when she grows up because she is fascinated with the idea of studying things that are too small to see with the naked eye. She is a very cheerful, inquisitive and bright young girl with a passion for helping those in her community.
Readers are welcome to drop off their canned dog food donations at the Northsider’s office in Witpoortjie, and for any soup or noodle donations, they can contact Glynis on glynro@gmail.com.
