Stats and Christmas
The year has been a great success. On our last trading day, 300 young recyclers all joyfully received a Christmas gift of food staples, treats and pre-loved toys. Thanks to the generosity of our donors and local businesses, the younger kids had a little difficulty with the weight of their gift!
Over 39 trading days from January until 2nd December, they paid us 6,274 visits, preventing 113,131kg of recyclable materials from entering our oceans or having to be transported to the landfill in Humansdorp. This brings our total since 2011 to 998,979 kg!!
The response to Henry and Clair’s campaign for donations towards Christmas gifts was incredibly touching, with new and old friends from across the world falling over themselves to make Christmas special. There are too many to mention here, but Heidrun, Ghosha and Ralf always keep the project close to their hearts even though they live far away.
Start of the year
Not all our top contributors, who were to receive Tree of Joy Christmas gifts could attend on our last day of 2023, so their gifts were arranged to be ready on their next visit. Trish fulfilled this job as main elf and these children were astounded to have their wishes granted.
As usual, we were graciously assisted in our bulk school stationery order by Jason and his staff at The Office 4 U. They always give us rock bottom prices and superlative service, often donating printing and material.
Suitcases full of beautiful children’s clothing – donations from Clair’s family and friends in UK – arrived and were put on display.
Spar Supermarket’s Distribution Centre called Kelly regarding a donation of school shoes. She had to make 3 trips to collect about 400 pairs of school shoes saving us an absolute fortune!
Before our first trading day, we started worrying whether we’d have enough volunteers to cope. YWAM Norway contacted us to say that their group of 11 will assist. Serendipity! The first day went splendidly thanks to them.
The Marina Martinique homeowners association’s second Cru De Marina event was an enormous success again. They shared profits between us and the fantastic JBay Animal Rescue Sanctuary. We each received a whopping, wonderful R25,000.00.
A meeting was held in February to discuss the project vision and goals for the year as well as addressing challenges with practical adjustments. Volunteer guidelines were updated and we implemented a number system to prevent queue-jumping and protect the children who are not in a group or with adults.
Thanks to Kelly communicating with them, we received the awesome news that the organizers at Victory Gap Year would volunteer at JBay Recycling Project in their student program for 2024. Between February and November, this group of 10+ helped out for 2 hours every trading day. They have been such a blessing!
The new CSALT program started in February as well, and as always with the CSALT groups, this group of around 10 young people have been energetic, kind, loving and lead by example.
Our friend Razaan Plaatjies at Kouga Express heard that we were sometimes short of volunteers so she wrote a lovely article calling for helpers; Our “poster girls” were Jeannette, Ursula and Isabelle. Belinda, Bruce and Nina saw the article and have been great additions to our team.
New partners
The owners of our private recycling company partner for 10 years, Enviroman was sold to Extreme Enviro Recyclers. They absorbed the staff we know and love and are continuing our mutually beneficial relationship, even making a fabulous donation towards Christmas gifts. A great result.
Our local authority, Kouga Municipality really stepped up in 2024. We received a 3 year financial commitment from them and they upgraded the community centre to improve ease of use to the children and elderly. Toilets and basins were replaced, floors tiled, a fresh coat of paint applied, roof leaks fixed, weighing and outside walking areas paved.
Committee members Kelly and Clair gave a project presentation to dignitaries at the WSL surf contest. Since then we have been in regular contact with Jane Keating and her colleagues at the Australian Embassy. We received financial donations as well as 3 huge boxes with loads of carefully selected items for the swop shop. We hope that this relationship will thrive.
The JBay Surfing Foundation, organisers of the surf event, also donated generously to the project.
Peak Fitness held an incredibly successful beach workout fundraiser, with 70 teams of 2 competing. It was perfectly planned and executed, everyone had a blast and they raised R7,000.00 which the owners doubled – wowee!
Lunch
Every child who participates in the project, spending time cleaning their neighbourhood, making sure they arrive in time on Monday and patiently waiting in line for their turn to find out how many Mula they have earned, receives a freshly prepared meal. Two popular local restaurants; Infood and Nina’s have for over a decade generously donated 200 fresh meals once a month. Recently, funds allowed for a third Monday meal prepared by the Sunshine Old Age Group, which shares our premises. This enables them to earn a little pocket money and the children to enjoy a delicious vetkoek with mince.
We appealed for hotdog/ sandwich sponsors to cater for the balance of trading days. Our friends Lufti and Heidrun were kind enough to each facilitate funding for 3 Monday’s worth of hotdogs.
Challenges
Frustratingly, we experienced 2 break-ins in August. This forced us to upgrade security, an expense we had not factored in. We appealed to Stewardship International in the UK, a stalwart among our donors, for assistance. They agreed, kindly and immediately, to fund these.
Due to the modern conditions of busy-ness and overstimulation, our annual art auction unfortunately didn’t gain enough support to go ahead in Spring. We are so thankful to Loretha and Marie for organizing it so many times in the past and to all the artists and attendees over the years. There are whisperings of fresh ideas and we are looking forward to an exciting new format in 2025.
Our biggest challenges remain:
- enough volunteers to assist all the children who want to participate, allowing each child to receive the attention they deserve and the time they need
- funds to stock the swop shop with necessities, as well as coveted high value items like bicycles, skateboards, dolls, sports equipment etc.
- “catering” on trading days – so that each child receives a nutritious snack or meal once their shopping is done and they can go home with full tummies
- maintaining the site infrastructure and equipment, so that the project can run smoothly
Thank you
(Please blame the author if you have not been mentioned by name: you made a difference, thank you.)
Of course everything has been possible thanks to the volunteers who dedicate their time. On Mondays around 2,000 volunteer-hours have been donated this year. The children have been empowered with priceless empathy, kindness and joy. Every individual makes a huge difference, but Victory Gap Year, CSALT, JBay Surf House, Jeffreys Bay Primary School, Ticket to Ride and Island Vibe (Tristan especially) deserve a mention for organizing groups to volunteer. Our regular team – Jeanette & Jeannette, Dionne, Isabelle, Ursula, Nina, Bruce, Belinda, Betsie, Marge, etc. are the lifeblood of the project. Another special mention should be the De Wet family: Mariska and kids. It’s always wonderful to see them arrive just as our energy is flagging towards the end of a long day. We are grateful to those who work behind the scenes – Gitta, Cecile and every person who knits/ crochets those works of art to keep the little ones warm, Margaret who refiles 200 registration cards every week, Trumie who launders the hand towels, Pirow our handyman/ ball inflator, Monica for storage and repacking..etc.
Kerry took over the chairperson reigns from Alison, who served with great love since the inception of the project. Kerry has been pro-active, offering fresh ideas and a hands-on approach. She introduced friends Susan and Trisha to the project in 2023 and as expected of Kerry’s friends, they are practical, organised, reliable, kind and energetic.
Every donor who sees value in partnering with JBay Recycling Project encourages our team to be even more dedicated to this project. From the family donating pre-loved toys, to the elderly lady who knits a cute teddy, to supporters from the US, Germany, Belgium, the UK and Australia who post parcels full of beautiful and useful items or donate through PayPal, every single contribution improves the life of a child.
Our accountants Moore: not only do they perform our audit at no cost, they are always available to answer any queries and provide sound advice.
The Baumgartner family arrived from Germany several times with suitcases of beautiful pre-loved “tekkies” from Viktoriamitte Fussball club – worth their weight in gold (the people and the shoes).
When we launched fundraisers for school uniforms, fleecy “onesies” which serve as pyjamas and tracksuits, soccer boots and sneakers, the donations rolled in. So many children were completely overwhelmed when they could go home with a precious new item to proudly show off and to help them sleep warm, exercise or attend school comfortably. We must make special mention of Caara, Derrick and BC Contortion students as well as JBay Travel for always leaping to assist whenever we want to address a specific need.
Thanks to an anonymous donor, who wants their financial donation to be used towards healthy food, we now stock some new items: noodle kits with added veggies and soya, eggs, Amasi (a popular traditional fermented dairy product) and fresh bread. We dropped the prices of many of our stock items, like the porridge, tinned fish and beans.
Food Lover’s Market is a wonderful supporter of JBay Recycling Project. Ridhwana, their Corporate Social Investment facilitator, arranged a new MOU, increasing the value of our allocation, ensuring each child gets a sweet and healthy reward for their hard work. They allowed us to utilize unspent funds on tinned fruit and pilchards for all the Christmas hampers.
We have once again applied for support from Woodlands/ First Choice Dairy next year. Thanks to Mandla and his colleagues, over the past 6 years, each recycler can choose to enjoy some milk with their snack on site or to take it home to use with breakfast or tea. They also supplied lots of sought after Christmas treats.
Our local Shoe City branch gave the project trolleyloads of “returned” shoe donations several times. Free shoes – what’s not to love?
SuperSpar Jeffreys Bay donated far beyond our expectations towards our Christmas food hampers. Thanks to them, every child received sweets, tea and biscuits to share at home.
When asked, Pick ‘n Pay immediately agreed to donate 300 hotdog rolls. The kids thoroughly enjoyed their delicious boerewors rolls, prepared by our expert braai masters on the last day.
Tour company HotSpots2C and their CSI arm 2cChange sent 9 generous donations this year – boxes full of school supplies, toiletries and flipflops as requested by the kids. They plan to start up a volunteer program, so we are looking forward to showing them the project they have been so kindly supporting for years.
GudCo, the eco-friendly toilet paper made from sugarcane and started by our friend and JBay local Ruan, donates boxes of TP every time we ask. Which is often!
Everyone’s favourite volunteer Zack was rehired full-time by a previous employer. His dedication has already earned him a promotion! We miss him, but we are very happy he’s doing so well/
Regular financial contributions provide stability and allow for budgeting – thanks to Mojo Properties, Stewardship International and the Schueller family for making it possible to buy the toothpaste, soap, porridge, pencils etc. the children need.
ARCH Actuarial Consultants surprised us a second time with another amazing donation.
Our biggest news of the year was undoubtedly funding approval by the National Lotteries Commission. By the time these funds were paid into our account in August, our bank account would only have sustained the project for another 3-4 months. We are very relieved and grateful to be able to cover around 70% of our annual expenses. Our treasurer Sue deserves so much credit for persevering with the Lotto application and now having to meticulously report expenditure – a daunting task she will handle with the usual good humour and professionalism.
Goodbye
We want to wish Geraldine and Charmaine all the very best in their new home in Cape Town. Visit soon, please!
Welcome
To Denise and Philip who have done so much for the project already and just relocated from the UK, welcome, and huge thanks to your congregation for the breathtakingly big send-off donation.
IN MEMORIAM
Our great friends Allistair Smith and Max Warren passed away this year. You will live on in the difference you made in this community. We are also preparing to say goodbye to Ingrid van Dyken, who taught us so much about living an authentic life.
The biggest thank you of all of course has to go to the children who offer us the opportunity to serve them and, in the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, do our “little bits of good that will overwhelm the world”.