Business

Marketing team highlights corporate South Africa’s community-driven projects in lockdown

Hi there, good morning  

We hope you enjoyed the first week of Level 3 with lifted restrictions. For many directors, managers, and entrepreneurs, this means finally getting back to the business of business. Thought about how (or what) you’re going to tell your clients and customers? We can help. Reach out.

With students going back to school, my thoughts turned to the wildly successful and incredibly heart warming corporate social investment initiative we recently had the pleasure of working on.

Zero2Five, a Kloof-based trust, has feeding schemes, Early Childhood Development education programmes and community development projects in informal, mostly rural settlements, across KZN and in the Eastern Cape. Beneficiaries include crèches, after school programmes and community centres.  

Under normal operating conditions, the various programmes support in the order of 17 000 children at their schools, every weekday.

With the lockdown, the households of these children were going without meals.

So the enterprising CEO, Julika Falkoner, approached Guy Cluver of Bellevue Café, a contemporary eatery, to assist and on Tuesday 28 April the popular Kloof restaurant was repurposed to cook meals for distribution to the needy.

Every six days, 500 kgs of chicken stew were cooked in the restaurant’s kitchen and decanted into 5 litre sealed buckets.  A bucket of stew and a bucket of rice were delivered to families in rural areas around Durban and as far as Zululand and Loskop in the Drakensberg.

In just five weeks, a massive 8 tons of cooked meals have been distributed. And by the end of June, we will have delivered 250 000 cooked meals to hungry families across the province.

“Corporate companies donated ingredients and the Upper Highway community also stepped up and  embraced this project. Streams of regular guests and friends delivered fresh vegetables, spices and grains and we are yet to need to buy raw materials”, said Bellevue Café owner, Guy Cluver. 

“Financial donations have also poured in. Our waitering team has really enjoyed the project and whilst the earnings are needed and appreciated, they all say that they love making a difference. 

Philip Chitsamba, a long standing waiter said: “I pray one day to be sitting in a cool place with my grandkids telling them that I was part of the team, Bellevue Café making history.”

Another waitron, Mpume Mhlongo, said she was happy to be working again and especially as she was helping those less fortunate.

The programme will continue as long as raw ingredients are available as even after the lockdown, the financial implications will still be felt.  If you’d like to make a positive difference by making a donation, you can do that here: click 

If you’ve been involved with any interesting projects, or if your company has developed new products during this period, let us help you communicate your successes. And if you’re ever in the Kloof area, be sure to stop by the Bellevue Café for a delicious bite. We guarantee you’ll feel the sense of community.

Until then, stay safe and healthy.

Warm regards,