By Benny Mojela
Food4Futures is raffling off some precious equipment to help deal with Makhanda’s ongoing water crisis – two water tanks.
The non-profit Food4Futures’ main focus is hunger alleviation – they supply food parcels from their offices at 2 Dundas Street to families who are unable to adequately feed themselves, and distribute donated clothing, shoes, and bedding. Their latest project is the water tank raffle, which will help the winner better deal with the regular water cuts that online readers of Grocott’s Mail and residents of Makhanda have become familiar with.
Mary Birt, founder of Food4Futures, said that the project was conceived through a volunteer, Daniel Scherman. “Daniel arrived on our doorstep because he was on the way to Thailand to teach English. He wanted to visit his Mom and his sister, but we had the lockdown and he couldn’t go anywhere until he got a job, so he started coming to volunteer for us. He now works for Eco-tanks,” Birt told Grocott’s Mail. Through the help of Scherman, Eco-tanks donated a 5000 litre water tank to Food4Futures.
When they were planning the raffle Mama Birt said, “We realised we are going to cut out a large section of the community, because people in smaller homes and with lower roof levels can’t have a 5000 litre water tank. So we decided to take a leap of faith and buy a 2750 litre water tank and hold two raffles. We have already raised enough money through the raffles to cover the money spent on the smaller tank”.
Tickets for the 5000l water tank are R50, and R20 for the 2750l water tank. “There are only 200 limited tickets for R50 because it was a gift, and there are unlimited tickets for R20, because we had to pay for it. We also encourage people who don’t need water tanks to buy tickets and nominate somebody else as a winner,” said Birt.
The raffle will be held at the Food4Futures offices on 22 July 2023. The Food4Futures working hours are 9 am – 1 pm, Monday – Friday. You can enter a name with e-mail or cellphone and you will be called or emailed if you are the winner.
