Sharing the Good Things

Charity in South Africa is a tricky thing. Everywhere you turn, there’s somebody who needs a hand. You’ll see them at robots (traffic lights for the rest of the world), parking lots, roadsides…all over. And that’s just the people we see. You can’t walk through a mall without being asked to donate to some type of charity in South Africa, and it’s sometimes difficult to sort through the noise- who needs the help the most? Which ones are scams (they’re out there)? And most of all, you try not to become so desensitised that you don’t even see it any more. And if I can accomplish one thing with this post, I hope it’s that my readers see the faces behind the need…

A while ago I wrote about one of my attempts to convince my wife that putting up with all my crap is, indeed, worth it. That particular time, I bought her a balloon ride for 2 with Bill Harrop’s Original Balloon Safaris, and you can read all about our adventure here. As I said at the time, I highly recommend Bill and his company, and even more so now.

“Let’s make a parachute. Except it goes up instead of down. And you can’t steer it. And we keep blasting fire right at it to keep it afloat. Oh, and we’re gonna be hanging in a basket underneath it.” -Guy who invented hot air ballooning.

Shortly after I posted about our trip, I received an e-mail from Bill, and I’ll always remember what he said in it:

“If you have something good and you don’t share it, you don’t deserve to have it.”

His “something good” is the amazing memories he’s able to give his customers. And in the spirit of sharing, he told me he wanted to donate a balloon ride for 2 for me to do what I wanted with to raise money for a cause I believed in.

Wow.

I believe in good whisky and great cigars, so I immediately began to plan how to turn this opportunity into those fine things.

And then I thought there might be an even BETTER way to use this extremely generous donation.

I also believe very strongly in education, and I’ve been fortunate enough to partner with my kids’ school, Tyger Valley College, a couple of times in the past to donate school supplies and food to a nearby school that desperately needs help, Boschkop Primary School.

Because I’m extraordinarily lazy by nature, I contacted someone at Tyger Valley College and acted helpless, saying something to the effect of, “Hey, I’ve got this gift certificate worth about R5000. I’d like to convert it to food to help out Boschkop Primary. If only there was some way we could raffle this off, and if only we had a way to convert that money into food…”

And that’s how I left it because I’m really good at having fragments of ideas and then leaving the heavy lifting to other people.

Within a couple of months, the great team at Tyger Valley held a raffle, raised a boatload of money, got the local Lions Club and Izzi Trust to donate a pile of money, and got corporate help from Makro and Genesis Nutrition, who made the money go a lot further than we would have been able to do on our own.

Melissa Cromhout (left) was the lucky winner. None of this would have happened without the hard work of the tireless Cindy Swanepoel (right).

All this meant there were 1000 food packs filled with rice, beans, and nutrient pouches for learners to take home for summer break!

Here’s what that looks like.

The Potato (my son) asked if he could come along when we distributed the food, and again, because I hate any kind of work whatsoever and will gladly pawn off anything that looks like, you know, effort, obviously I said yes.

Here I am avoiding work.

As we pulled up to the school, the Potato asked where the sports fields were. I think this was the first time his privilege really hit him. He looked around wide-eyed but got right to work. He’s usually a little bit shy, and I didn’t know how he’d react to this kind of almost-organised chaos, but he started grabbing food packs and making sure each of the kids got one.

Here’s the Potato working.

I wish he put this much effort into cleaning his friggin’ room.

He was amazed that we were able to give out so much food, and directly afterwards asked me what else we could do to help not only this school, but other schools as well.

Leave it to my kid to make more work for me. Jerk.

The teachers made controlling 1000 kids seem easier than me controlling my 2 little…uhhhh….angels.

But that being said, this whole thing came about accidentally, and it snowballed with the help of several amazing people. I have several “something goods” in my life. And as Bill Harrop said, if I don’t share, I don’t deserve them to begin with.

In that vein, I’ve already talked to another blogger in South Africa about trying to do something bigger and better in the coming months. If you’re reading this and you want to help in any way, or if you have suggestions, I’d love to hear from you.

Cause I’d love to see more of this…

…and this…

…and this…

…and this.

Right now I’ve got only half-formed ideas, but I’m confident that with a little help, our “something goods” will be able to help many people.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about South Africa, it’s that there are loads of good people who give a crap, and they’re not hard to find.

I can’t thank Bill Harrop, his daughter Sarah Bauling, Cindy Swanepoel, Izzi Trust, The Pretoria Lions Club and their respective teams enough. It’s people like you who make people like me believe in the good things.

(If you liked this post, don’t forget to sign up to the mailing list here so you never miss another post again! While you’re at it, you can like the Maple and Marula Facebook page here, the Maple and Marula Instagram here, and follow Maple and Marula on Twitter here)