Build a Second Soup Kitchen in S. Africa

In our second soup kitchen in the very poor township of Bedford, S. Africa, which we set up last year in Ndileka's mother's house, we are now feeding around 85 kids and 65 elderly people every day.  This soup kitchen is very helpful in Bedford community as its highest challenge is unemployment and poverty, and there is little money for food, let alone good food.  The childrern were doing poorly in school because of hunger, and are now able to focus at school as we have started serving them porridge in the morning as well as the elderly people.  This soup kitchen is still very rudimentary as funding has been slow, but we do much with little and hope to keep the program going and even to expand it.  It is not in a great area and security is an issue for the pots, pans, cooking gas, and food. 

So we are hoping to build a fence around the house, and will need to raise $6,000 for a good fence.  We also very much need a used van that can carry food from the foodbank as we now qualify for large quantites of free food but only have buses and unreliable ways to get the food to the soup kitchen.  The roads are very rough as this township is not in any suburb.  The cost for a van would be about $6,000 for a very used but OK van.

We are doing great work and making school and life possible for the poorest of the poor.  We have many siblings who come from homes with only rice and beans a few times a week, if that.  Elderly people are not receiving any government help of any kind and more and more are starving or existing on almost nothing.  We stretch a dollar into ten dollars and have all volunteers.

With the award of food from the foodbank, we are blessed and ready to do more, but need a fence and a van to be more reliable and safe.