BEFSA has stepped in to feed children during times of crisis and real need when the government’s school nutrition programme has, for whatever reason, ceased to operate.
Most recently we have intervened to feed children and many adults during the COVID19 pandemic when schools in the Eastern Cape were closed. Working with the local Gift of the Givers charity in Adelaide and with a couple of local women living in the towns of Bedford and Fort Beaufort we were able to establish six feeding stations in Adelaide, one in Bedford and one in Fort Beaufort.
Each feeding station was producing 300 meals a day, 7 days a week. Put another way they were producing 2,400 meals a day or 16,800 meals a week.
As the lockdown took hold in South Africa our partners in South Africa have told us that more and more adults were turning up at our feeding stations looking for food.
We remain grateful to the Gift of the Givers team in Adelaide, and to several local individuals for the magnificent support they have given to us and to local vulnerable people who had nowhere else to turn to during the pandemic.