To date, 5600 meals have been delivered to homes in around eThekwini and as far as Chatsworth, Asheville, Table Mountain, Howick, Eshowe, Zululand, KwaNyuswa, Embo, Molweni, Dassenhoek, Chatsworth, Table Mountain, Winterton, Loskop, Estcourt, Mpophomeni and Howick.
KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (18 May 2020) – Since the popular and buzzing Bellevue Café in Kloof has been repurposed in late April to cook much-needed meals, which will be distributed to the needy for the duration of the lockdown by NPO Zero2Five Trust, the project has grown from strength to strength.
For 6 days every week, at least 500 kgs of chicken stew is cooked in several steaming pots in the restaurant’s kitchen, decanted into 5 litre sealed buckets and taken into marginalised communities all over KwaZulu-Natal. Rolling out an average of 100 buckets containing 800 meals per day with 1 kg rice on the side, Bellevue Café had yet to purchase a single ingredient. Generous donations by the Willowton Group, RCL Foods, Unilever, The Juice Kitchen, Oxford Food Market, Regal Meats, and many individuals who stream in daily do drop off vegetables in all shapes and colours have made this project a huge success.
To date, a massive 8 tons of cooked meals have been distributed.
Zero2Five Trust also received an enormous 1421 food relief parcels from the eNCA/ HCI Foundation national campaign, leaving many needy families equipped with a Bellevue stew bucket and a box of food to last a family of 4 for another 4 weeks.
The delicious stews have been delivered to rural areas as far as Zululand to the north and Loskop in the Drakensberg Escarpment.
“Once again, the Upper Highway community has stepped up and embraced this project. We have had streams of regular guests and friends delivering fresh vegetables, spices and grains, and we are yet to need to buy raw materials. Financial donations have continued to pour in with one of our neighbours and friends, donating a whopping R60 000-00 to the project. Our waitering team has really enjoyed the project, and while the earnings are needed and appreciated, they all say that they love making a difference, says Guy Cluver, owner, and founder of Bellevue Café.
Philip Chitsamba, a long-standing waiter, put this on our WhatsApp group last week which really resonated with us all: “I pray one day to be sitting in a cool place with my grandkids telling them that I was part of the team, Bellevue Café making history,” continued Cluver.
Julika Falconer, CEO of Zero2Five Trust adds, “We are totally overwhelmed by the support of the big food donors and our Upper Highway community. The monetary donations will allow us to continue cooking and delivering these highly nutritious chicken stews for another few weeks and – together with the many other dry food donations we are adding – we help many struggling families survive this crisis. With much uncertainty on when the lockdown will be lifted, ongoing projects like this not only supply much-needed nutrition but also give the communities an unmeasurable sense of community and hope. With a further extension of the level 4 restrictions until the end of May, South Africa is expecting and fearing a hunger crisis of historical scale.”
We are delighted that the Conscious Café in Hillcrest has also opened their kitchen to assist with preparing meals.
The public can support the cause by donating vegetables to Bellevue Café, Kloof or by donating in cash using Zapper or the banking details listed on the www.zero2five.org website.
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