CHRISTMAS came early for learners at seven Diepsloot Combined primary schools as the Steyn City community joined hands with various stakeholders to deliver trucks full of school bags filled with food parcels, stationery and thousands of boxes of shoes.
Every year around this time, the Steyn City celebrates the season’s spirit of goodwill by giving back to the less privileged as part of their annual Delivering Happiness to Diepsloot, now in its seventh year.
“Although we have undertaken several initiatives at Steyn City to assist our neighbours, including job creation, our artists’ programme and skills development projects, this is by far our favourite. It’s our way of giving back to the children of Diepsloot, many of whose parents and caregivers work at our parkland residence,” says Steyn City Properties CEO, Giuseppe Plumari.
This time around, the Steyn City community decided to intensify their effort in the hope that no learner from any of its school partners will have to endure the pain and indignity of having to walk to school barefoot.
With this in mind, community members were invited to become a #SoleMate by donating shoes through the resort’s website.
“It is alarming to see how the simple lack of school shoes can affect a learner. Every year, many children are forced to walk distances, come rain or shine, negatively impacting on their education,” Plumari points out.
As the result, the lifestyle resort (named South Africa’s second best residential estate in the AfrAsia Bank and New World Wealth’s 2017 rating) along with various stakeholders was able to deliver on its promise to donate 13 000 pairs of shoes to the affected Diepsloot learners in its #PledgeAPair project.
Businesses working together to bring joy to communities
This year’s project was a tremendous success, all thanks to combined efforts from among others, the Gift of the Givers, Auto & General and women’s upliftment group, Uzwelo in KwaZulu-Natal.
Another noteworthy contribution came from radio jock and master of ceremonies, Thabo “Tbo Touch” Molefe, who managed to secure the sponsorship from TFG (The Foschini Group), which donated 10 000 blankets. Says Mymoena Mooradd, CSI manager at TFG: “This is a great example of how the right partnerships can work together to bring joy to communities. TFG’s Educate2Empower is about more than just access to quality education, but also about ensuring that basic needs are met. So many have played a role in making this possible, I’d especially like to thank the TFG employees who have made the blankets.”
Plumari commended Gift of the Givers for their generous donation, which included 11 000 pairs of socks, 11 000 packages of Red Lion instant noodles, 11 000 packages of Genesis High Nutrition Cereal and 3 000 sweet packs.
Other notable sponsors included Kelloggs, which supplied food items and Stuttaford Van Lines, while The Star newspaper came on board as the media partner.
