Western Cape Premier Helen Zille joined other volunteers to don a hair net, a plastic apron and gloves to prepare peanut butter and jam sandwiches for school children to mark Do It Day.
Zille and school pupils from Settlers High School arrived with crates of sandwiches and other lunchtime goodies at Bardale Primary School in Bardale informal settlement in Mfuleni on Friday. About 700 lunch parcels, as well as fruit, were distributed at the school. Zille and the volunteers spent the morning preparing the sandwiches at the Philippi Food Market.
She said she had lost track of how many she had made. "I felt a bit like a conveyer belt — the sandwiches just kept coming along," she said. Do lt Day is a voluntary initiative established by Greater Good SA, an organisation that connects corporate society to charity organisations and encourages people to adopt anti-poverty programmes.
Patrick Andries, managing director of FoodBank Cape Town, which organised the event, said they had identified eight underprivileged schools across Cape Town where they distributed lunch parcels daily
as part of their Lunch Buddies initiative. The Food Bank usually collects about 2 000 sandwiches which are donated from more privileged schools each day.
Andries said about 80 donor schools made sandwiches, which were distributed to 486 agencies, créches, children’s homes and other organisations.
Zille said several organisations in the Western Cape did charitable work for the disadvantaged, but more aid was needed. "We can only really encourage people to take part and get involved in these kinds of initiatives," she said.
