Good Hope Soup-a-heroes

July 18 is Nelson Mandela's birthday.
In honour of the 67 years of service he gave to our society, South African's unite each year on Mandela Day and pay tribute to those less fortunate. During 67 memorable minutes (or often much more), many join forces to feed, clothe, support, build, volunteer and contribute to those who need it the most.

2020 communities across the world are battling the COVID-19 pandemic, which has hard hit our economy causing new challenges all over the entire country. Mandela Day is, even more so this year, an initiative to encourage groups and individuals in our society to get together and help those in need of support. Initiatives include delivering food parcels, making masks and protective equipment to battle the virus as well as teaching online or making donations of various kinds.

Good Hope Studies took part in one of these initiatives this year.
9 enthusiastic Good Hope Studies students and 4 staff members chopped, peeled and prepared vegetables for soup. They spent 3 hours at the Drifter Brewing company, a local brewery, who has converted their beer-making equipment to soup-making facilities in order to address the hunger crisis exacerbated by the COVID-19 lockdown.

Since the alcohol ban went into effect in South Africa on March 27, local breweries and restaurants found creative ways to try and stay afloat. Craft breweries typically use the equivalent of giant kettles to make beer. Across the country, this equipment is being repurposed as giant cooking pots to make mass quantities of nutritional soup. It is then delivered to NGOs for distribution among the communities.

While the alcohol ban has been lifted again, Drifter is continuing with the operation Soup-A-Heroes with the motto "brewing hope while filling bellies."
"Our brewing system is a 1000L tank, so a single batch of the soup can feed at least 2500 people. And we’re cooking multiple batches in a day, which means we can feed up to 10,000 people come dinner time.” says Nick Bush, Director and Co-Founder of Drifter.

Our Volunteer Manager Vanessa Randon, collected R3.500 from friends and family and the students not only pledged their time but some committed funds to the cause as well. Three thousand servings of soup were made with the 1 tonne of vegetables we had purchased, while Drifter Breweries provided a total of 18.000 serving of soup for those in need on this Mandela Day.

"We thank everyone who participated; it was a wonderful, fun day and we are so proud of our students who stepped up and helped out!"

Yours,
Vanessa Randon (Programme Manager)
The Good Hope Volunteer Team

To be part of our amazing volunteer community, please contact us.