By Lou Billett | Founder, African Angels Founder
Because of you, and your support for our Food Parcel drive, we could provide every African Angels family with a substantial food parcel this month.
We trekked to the Municipal Fruit and Veg Markets, on the other side of East London, to select 120 pockets of potatoes, 120 cabbages, 120 bags of carrots, 120 bags of apples, and pockets of oranges. The Municipal markets are the wholesalers for all the produce in our city, and we wanted to get as much food for your donation as we could. We hired a truck to help bring the food back to Chintsa, but it proved to be too small for all the food, and an emergency call was made for Max to come out with our loan bakkie. Once all our vehicles were loaded, mine stuffed with 120 cabbages (the smell!) we headed back to Chintsa.
Whilst we were at the markets, a team of our high school kids (our Guardian Angels), guided by Bulelani, were off loading 120 x 12.5kg bags of mealie meal, sugar, tea, soup mix, pilchards, oil at the community hall, in neat rows, cross checking each parcel had each item.
Patient families waited, masked up and social distanced at the gate with family members and wheelbarrows to help take the food back to their houses, some right at the back of the village. Parents of each grade had been given a particular hour to arrive by SMS. The rest of the day saw grateful families arrive to collect their food, that we could distribute, because of your generosity.
We estimate that in the last five months of lockdown, over 300 people have lost their permanent jobs in the tourism industry. We are only starting to see local tourism businesses operate again, with the increase in local tourism. Food security is a huge part of our relief efforts over lockdown, supporting our Angel families.
A special thanks must go the Lymms Afritwyn community, particularly Chris and Debbie Burnett who have personally emailed so many of their former students, asking for contributions to a food parcel. Thank you to the former Lymms students for heeding their call. We would also like to thank a long term sponsor who kick started this campaign with a substantial donation.
We expect that as tourism opens up, some folk will be able to earn income and reduce the need on food parcels. We have also received funding for seedlings, fencing, some basic equipment, for 50 household gardens, which will be a project driven from within the community, using expertise from those folk already growing.
Your support has given the people of Chintsa hope and comfort over the past few months, that they are not alone.
Thank you.
Lou Billett
African Angels Founder
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