Dear Friends,

I am writing this letter on behalf of the many volunteers and donors who responded so readily to address the hunger crisis in Kranshoek caused by the Covid-19 National Lockdown. By giving selflessly of their help and time and by donating money to buy food, you, the People of Kranshoek, were kept fed during this time of extreme difficulty.

I hope this letter will give you some clarity about the work we have done and what we wish for your Community.

ach day since 27 March, I and Annie Le Roux and other volunteers have come to Kranshoek to feed the hungry. In the beginning, we drove from street to street feeding children from our “soup kitchen on wheels” and soon we were feeding the aged as well as anyone who stopped to ask for food. Since then, with the additional soup kitchens we have established, we have now handed out over 53,000 meals.
It is only because of kind and generous donations that we have been able to supply food, both from our Soup Kitchens and by distributing food parcels. We also need to make it quite clear that neither the Municipality nor the Government made any contribution towards our Soup Kitchen feeding. Instead it has been Plett locals, neighbours of Kranshoek and caring people from all over the world that have contributed to help you survive during this time of need.
We have also distributed over 1500 food parcels to families in Kranshoek in the past two months. Designed to feed four people for one week, these parcels represent another 40,000 meals. This compares with the Municipality and Government that only managed to send 250 food parcels to Kranshoek during all this time.
We tried to focus on giving parcels to those most in need, including foreigners with no support systems, and we apologise if we could not get to everyone. We did our best under very difficult circumstances.
To summarise, I estimate we have provided some 93,000 meals in total to the People of Kranshoek since lockdown started and we are currently continuing to feed about 1,400 people a day from nine soup kitchens.
As it is clearly not possible to continue this level of feeding indefinitely, we have started “OnsGroei/WeGrow”, a Community food growing project designed to establish sustainable food sources for the people of Kranshoek. We aim to teach you how to grow your own food to feed yourselves from your own and communal gardens. We are already hosting workshops where you can learn how to do this. We are also providing you with practical advice, seeds, compost, basic tools and support to help get you started. This would not have been possible without the helping hands of caring volunteers, neighbours and private donations.
As we will obviously not be able to provide indefinite financial support for all these feeding initiatives, we are now urging you, the People of Kranshoek, to help yourselves and to help each other. We therefore encourage you to be creative and put into practice ideas and ways you think could benefit those less fortunate, your neighbours and your community. Think of ways you could clean up your neighbourhood and township which has long suffered from thoughtless waste dispersal and lack of service delivery. Think of how to recycle your waste and how to beautify and protect your environment and become proud of your heritage. Think of ways to support the kitchen gardens as well as the soup kitchens we have started. Think of how to make Kranshoek the model township of the Eden District.
We look forward to connecting with “Kranshoekers” who share these hopes and visions – those who are willing to create self-help projects and come up with ideas for self-sustaining initiatives. We would love nothing more than to see you become a self-empowered, winning community.
We will help you where we can, but the reality is your future is in your own hands. Good luck and Godspeed.
With Love and Friendship,
Tina Hopff.
(On behalf of the People of Love Organisation and all those volunteers and donors who have responded to the call of Kranshoek in need)