Friday mornings are special for many of Witpoortjie’s poor, as they stand in a queue with happy smiles on their faces.
The smiles are wide, because they know that this queue in front of Laerskool Dr Havinga will lead them to the friendly people from Nosh Food Rescue, where they will receive some bread to eat, as well as something sweet to round it off.
According to Hanneke van Linge, the founder of Nosh, the feeding scheme has been running since 2012. She said, “Initially a friend of mine, Alison Loumeau, identified a need among the people who were sitting on the street corners looking for piece jobs. She decided to try and make a difference by helping them with something to eat. I joined her at the beginning of 2015, and after my friend retired to the coast, I took over from her for a while,” Hanneke said.
She added that she had been involved in food rescue for about four years, before registering a non-profit company (NPC), and said, “I registered a NPC in 2017, in order to expand the food rescuing activities. The Nosh project is focused on the rescue, repurposing and redistributing of wholesome, prepared and perishable food items at the retail and commercial level. These items are then directly distributed to individuals currently within the Johannesburg Metropolitan area. Nosh is positioned as a non-profit organisation linking food retailers and the hungry, and we support a network of shelters, soup kitchens and feeding schemes.”
Hanneke said that they always appreciate any extra help they can get, especially when it comes to monthly donations towards petrol, gas, serving containers and condiments, to name just a few of their needs.
“We would also love to get help with fetching, sorting sorting and cooking donations from people living in the vicinity. At the moment we would appreciate if we could get an extra trestle table or two, a better gas stove and more large catering pots and utensils.
“We also desperately need help with fundraising, creating more awareness and getting more retailers on board,” she said.
Donations can be made to NOSH Food Rescue, FNB Randburg, account number 62759834411, branch number 250655. “I would like people to use RPoort Record and their name, to enable me to attribute and thank correctly,” Hanneke said.
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