THE staff of Algoa FM in Port Elizabeth danced their hearts out and now five charities will be singing all the way to the bank.The announcement was made on Friday, 31 July and the total prize money of R500 000 will go to the station’s chosen charities with each charity receiving R100 000.
THE staff of Algoa FM in Port Elizabeth danced their hearts out and now five charities will be singing all the way to the bank.The announcement was made on Friday, 31 July and the total prize money of R500 000 will go to the station’s chosen charities with each charity receiving R100 000.
One of these charities is our Gadra, which will be receiving R100 000 after Algoa FM entered the Vodacom Radio Challenge and received 54.59% of votes for their video.
The competition challenged radio stations across South Africa to create their own video for Beyoncé
Knowles’ song, Single Ladies and Algoa created their video with comedian Gino Fabbri as their star.
The official handover will take place at the station on Friday, 14 August where representatives of all the charities will be in attendance.
Recession blessing
Algoa FM’s promotional manager, Toinette Koumpan said, “There was no criteria used to choose the charities. We tried to ensure that we covered the entire region, and that the footprint of the station is covered.”
A social worker at Gadra Nosiphiwo Mani said, “We are very excited. We cannot believe that we got so much money, especially now that it’s the recession. It is unbelievable”. She added that the money will be used to buy a bakkie to help in their garden project.
“We usually have problems transporting manure, seedlings and sometimes fencing. The project is operated by blind people from their gardens and it is usually tricky to deliver the supplies,” she said.
She also said the bakkie will help with transporting marimbas for Siboneni Marimba Band, most of whose members are blind or partially-sighted.
“With the recession going on and money being so tight, this came at just about the right time,” said Mani.
Unbelievable streak
The first phone call informing Gadra of the great news was received by Mani as the director Pauline Mitchell was out of the country at the time.
“They called wanting to know a brief background of the organisation, which I gave, I even gave them our website address so they could check themselves.
Pauline couldn’t believe me when I told her about the call,” said Mani boisterously.
Other charities who benefited from the competition are Oosterland Youth Centre in Despatch, Port Eliabeth’s Down Syndrome Association and Cansa branch and and St Bernard’s Hospice in East London.
