Highlights of the day included:
- Hotels in the East Rand airport area supported the Johannesburg Children’s Home once again, deep cleaning and painting the cottages, and donating food.
- Sandton hotels assisted Ikholwa Hope Children Home with essential maintenance.
- Pretoria hotels prepared soup for Rose Happy Times Elderly Home and treated children at Aruka Foundation to cupcakes and juice.
- Umhlanga hotels organised an Amazing Race with Reach for a Dream Foundation, made sandwiches, and contributed to Chefs With Compassion’s #67000L Soup Drive.
- The George team joined 145 volunteers to pack 143 boxes totaling 30,888 meals for Rise Against Hunger.
- Cape Town hotels and support office staff treated Diemersfontein and Thokozani farm workers’ children to lunch and fun activities, including a colouring in competition and magician show, and handed over school shoes, scarves, beanies, and upcycled school shirts and recycled soaps.
A highlight of the day’s activities in Cape Town was the handover of school shirts made from linen retired from the group’s hotels to farm workers’ children. A double bed sheet can be upcycled to make four school shirts for pre-primary and primary school children. With reject linen available each year, there are plans to roll out this initiative to other hotels in the group, benefiting various organisations and children.
Another recycling success story is new bars of soap for CSI distribution made from used soap and shampoo bars. Bruce Turner, owner of City Lodge Hotels’ amenities supplier, The Bespoke Amenities Company (TBAC), has developed a process to remove the outer layer from used hotel soap and shampoo bars, sanitise and mince the core, finally reforming the mixture into new bars with a pleasing fragrance and marbled appearance. Each child at Diemersfontein and Thokozani wine farm received a bar of this soap, packed in a branded cloth bag for the occasion.
Hotels contributing used soap and shampoo bars can receive recycled bars back for their CSI initiatives. This circular economy practice, championed by Bruce at TBAC, minimises waste while benefiting people and the planet.
Currently, this enterprise is available only in Gauteng, with plans to expand to other regions and hotel groups, creating an industry-wide initiative that also generates employment opportunities.
Lindiwe Sangweni-Siddo, chief operating officer at City Lodge Hotels, says, “This period of giving back has warmed our hearts as much as those we have been fortunate enough to bless with our activities. As a hotel group with the goal of 'people caring for people' at its core, we cherish these opportunities to make a difference. While we engage in charitable activities year-round, Mandela Day reminds us that generosity can take many forms – from goods and services to time and care. We are delighted to be a part of this global day of giving back.”
We give our nation’s hero, Nelson Mandela, the last word: “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.”
