By Sibabalwe Tame
Revelations Cafe’ at Peppergrove Mall recently hosted Burger Evening to help raise funds for Child Welfare SA in Makhanda.
Debbie Labuschagne, a part-time administrative assistant at Child Welfare, said, “We decided to do this burger evening to raise funds; it is for fundraising”. She continued by saying, “We run a safe house in Joza, a preschool [The Nompumelelo Preschool], and we are social workers.” She also mentioned that they also run an after-school care programme called “Maths and Literacy Life Skills”.
Labuschagne said that the idea for the Burger Evening was Childwelfare Charity Shop manager Dean Walker-Randall’s idea. “It is our last fundraising effort for the year”.
She added that Dean Walker-Randall contacted Chantelle Waters, the owner of Revelations Cafe’, to use her venue and that she played a big part in helping organise the Burger Evening. “She felt like she could contribute to us,” said Labuschagne.
Waters told Grocott’s Mail that she was more than happy to accommodate Child Welfare for the event, as it was for a good cause.
Regarding the challenges in organising the event, Labuschagne said that arranging tickets was the challenge they faced. “There are 114 people that I’ve booked for tonight, and the restaurant only takes 90.” She said that they even had to borrow chairs from restaurants across the road so that they can be able to accommodate more people.
Walker-Randall also played a big part in organising the fundraising event and said that Waters helped him as they came together to manage it. In terms of the event’s success, Dean said he feels “quite pleased because it’s the first time we’ve tried something like this; I was also very worried that there wasn’t going to be a lot of people.”
Speaking to Grocott’s Mail about the event’s success, Waters says, “I am very grateful that the community can come together as well as they did. I was very happy to see how [Makhandans] came together; at the end of the day, it’s all gone to a good cause, and that we could stand together as we did gives us hope for our little town.”
Martha Thompson, Director of Child Welfare in Makhanda, was impressed by the event, saying, “It is really a stunning event”.
“We applied to the National Lottery,” said Thompson, adding that they also apply throughout the funders, not just local funders, but international funders as well, to continue with their services. She also mentioned that their organisation (Child Welfare Makhanda) is 107 years old. “My job is always to raise funds and continue the work that we do,” she added.
She also thanked Makhandans for their continued support.
