FACED with extreme poverty and unknown hunger, local Jeffreys Bay surfers have launched a non-profit initiative – Let’s Feed JBay – in a bid to provide much-needed food to residents living in dire circumstances.
Headed by childhood friends – Chokka Trahms, Tobias Schroeder, Dylan Lightfoot, Steven Sawyer, Remi Peterson and Dijon Smith – it is hoped to raise a minimum of R1 million.
All the money raised will be used to buy food for the hungry. The initiative follows after Trahms and Schroeder visited an informal settlement in Jeffreys Bay earlier this month – witnessing the poorest of poor starving.
“Many of these individuals – now without any income during the national lockdown – live in single-room shacks made from scrap metal, old wooden planks and old sign boards with no running water or toilets,” says Lightfoot. “It is becoming a fight for survival among the poorest of poor. Please help us raise money that can go towards purchasing food and distributing it to those most in need.”
Funds are paid to the supplier who supplies the food in bulk. The initial plan is to pack using shifts, so families will take turns to pack to prevent any contamination between people. Smhart security will be donating all the protective items for Corona safety. Each family will be trained to pack and have a two-hour shift.
Hampers consist of maize meal, rice, cooking oil, baked beans, tomato and onion mix, soup packets, toilet paper, soap and toothpaste.
“It would be amazing if residents can add bread, milk, fresh fruit and vegetables to the hamper,” says Lightfoot.
The hampers will be distributed by Smhart Security to households identified by various local non-government organisations. Each person receiving a hamper has to supply their name, ID number and address to ensure food is not duplicate-supplied.
According to Lightfoot, the initiative will continue until the end of lockdown and life returns to normal – or as normal as life will ever be after this.
For more information or to make a much-needed donation, visit https://www.gogetfunding.com/letsfeedjbay/.
World Surfing League
The World Surf League (WSL) has started a campaign called #StayLocal, to encourage surfers to support local businesses or organisations in their area that could do with some help during this difficult time.
Whatever the surfer donates or gives, the WSL will match.
Jeffreys Bay surfer, and a young rookie on the WSL world tour, Matthew McGillivray made a very generous effort to support two local surf schools in Jeffreys Bay. He donated $1 000 to both Son Surf School and Jeffreys Bay Surf School.
“It’s really inspiring and sets the bar high for other, high profile surfers,” says Bianca Van Aardt from WSL.
To add to this, South Africa’s top world tour surfer, Jordy Smith, and former world tour campaigner, Michael February, came together to put their support behind the Let’s Feed Jbay initiative.
“They are very passionate about this organisation that has been set up to help feed Jeffreys Bay and the communities that are suffering as a result of the lockdown,” she says.
