This year, StreetSmart has raised an impressive R480
000, all from the R5 donation which is voluntarily added to your bill at the
32 participating restaurants in a few of the major centres in South Africa. Why
only 32 restaurants? This was the first time that we had been invited to see
the presentation of the cheques, all of which go to support agencies looking
after street children (a constant problem in our country) to enable them to get
off the streets, get back to their families where possible or to make a better
life for themselves. If you are interested in the work that
the projects who receive the awards are doing, we have put their website
addresses on the blog, so you can read about them and StreetSmart. www.streetsmartsa.org.za/
They currently have a very good Christmas raffle running with over 250 superb prizes and only 1000 tickets for sale at R100 each. do check this out on-line to buy your tickets and make a donation
One question we want to ask of all our readers and
those of you who own or work in restaurants. What is holding you back? Diners:
please ask your favourite restaurants why they are not taking part in this
worthy effort. Restaurants: please look at the scheme. Every single cent you
raise goes to the projects. StreetSmart have other donors who support the
administration and running of the charity.
The audience
filling up the seats
The awards
Nils Hecksher is the Chairman of
StreetSmart and he made the presentations fast and fun and engaged everyone
there
Restaurateurs and other involved
people who helped raise the R480 000, whom Nils wanted to thank. In the photo are Deborah of the Radisson Hotel who also gave the venue, Gregory Zeleny of SecretEats, Caroline Bagley from
Savoy Cabbage, Sandra Engelen of the Cape Town Club and Stephen Peterson of the
Taj Hotel
This young man, Gregory Zeleny, runs SecretEATS.com and they raise a lot of money for
StreetSmart, both with the voluntary donations and also by holding raffles at
the dinners
Pam Jackson of Ons Plek gave us some
history on how Cape Town copes with children on the street. Things have
changed; they are now better able to identify children before they go solo on the
streets and scoop them up, but the problem is increasing. She was awarded
R100 000, which will go towards employing a new social worker to work with the
children
Some of the cheques that were awarded (the money was transferred electronically, the "cheques" were there to show)
The Cape Town Multi Service Centre
also received R100 000 which was received by General Manager Elsa van Huysteen. Nils
commented that the children in their care are all very well behaved!
Home from Home also received R100 000
and the cheque was received by Jane Payne
Learn to Live was awarded R100 000 to
go to the Panel Beating Workshop. The cheque was collected by five of the
trainees, Rodney their instructor and Madeline Thornhill. You may recognise this as the Salesian Institute, of which they are a part
The final cheque for R80 000 went to
TLC Outreach Projects and will also go towards the salary of the social worker
Glen McKeag then presented a bursary, dedicated to his late partner, to Sintu Quza, Field Director who works for KusasaProject in Franschhoek as the community liaison. This will enable him to
continue with his studies
and Stenströms shirts gave Nils a
surprise donation of R25 000 for StreetSmart
Some Contribution Awards were
presented, including two to The Grand in the Waterfront and Camps Bay
Then it was time to socialise in the
foyer and get to know more about the projects and the people involved
Chef Richard Chamberlain of Out of This Planet Catering donated his and his staff’s time and the canapés for the
event. These were scrumptious mini Chinese dumplings. Richard is a well known
and popular caterer
Some “Welsh sausages” with a leek and
onion puree
Seared Gemsbok on polenta cakes
Lynne and Richard taking about food
and the industry
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2014
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