EKUPHUMLENI FOOD AID – THE THIRD DROP

This evening being 20 May 2020 Kosra will be commencing with its third drop of food onto Eku.

As we embark on this, let’s look back for just a second.

What have we achieved since the 27 March?

1. We raised in the order of R560 000-00
2. Drop 1 we managed to place 1000 food parcels into Eku
3. Drop 2 we managed 1354 food parcels into Eku
4. Through collective efforts, we placed 800x 3kg pockets of citrus into Eku
5. Another collective initiative produced 100, 25kg pockets of potatoes into Eku
6. We sponsored 170 food parcels for the Bushrivbokrock initiative at R100/parcel
7. We managed to procure 7000l of UHT milk free of charge from our generous dairy farmer neighbours
8. We have formed the most incredible liaison relationship with all our neighbouring schemes.

This must be seen against the background of everybody involved giving their time for free.

In the light of the amazing generosity of the Kenton community up to now, it is no surprise that the rate of contributions has slowed. We are also reluctant to ask for more contributions when everyone is beginning to feel the pinch. Even if we are reduced to Level 3 at the end of May, no one will receive income until at the earliest the end of the first week in June, and others only at the end of the month, and some not at all. We, therefore, anticipate that a fourth drop will be needed in June. We have therefore decided to be thrifty and stretch our remaining funds over the next 2 drops.

Some bargaining has been taking place between myself and Spar and we have finally settled on a price of R82 /10kg bag of White Star maize meal.

Starting tonight we will be dropping only the maize meal for the next five nights. Our aim is to drop 1200 parcels by the end of this.

This should give us funds to do a further drop of food should the need arise further down the line. We are expecting another load of potatoes and these together with the milk will be delivered during the day, using our new daytime delivery method. This in my opinion makes for a good combination, but we are still trying to source some cheap protein and are working on it. Just to put it in a nutshell, so far we have delivered 27 425kg of food parcels, 2400kg of citrus, and 2500kg of potatoes. The real stars of the show are our runners as all that weight has been hand-delivered.

Regards,
Mark Moses.