Christmas is about giving and caring and this year has been an extremely hard one with Covid-19 and we have lost many of our Golden Oldies who celebrated Christmas last year with your help. The situation in Zimbabwe is unstable and extremely volatile to say the least at the moment. Prices of basics are increasing daily in both the local currency and USD, so no matter what funds, if any you have, you are constantly on the loosing side of the battle. There is just no relief. You are sitting with towns like Bulawayo who are water shedding and only get water 1 day a week for 12 hours. Our Golden Oldies who are currently most at risk are those who are not in an old age home. They are the ones with little to no support at all. They live in outside “Maids” quarters, in their own home (often falling apart) and for most of them almost total isolation. This is where our Outsiders lists are so important in trying to keep track and assist these Golden Oldies as much as possible. Letting them know we care is of utmost importance.
With Covid-19 still in play and it being such a threat to our Golden Oldies, We are taking up once again the special Saline fluid for the nebulisers, Sani-Spray, disposable aprons (Hopefully as I am not finding stock here & these are for the frail care and wards), the maxi san which is used to disinfect communal areas, wards, kitchens dinning halls and so on. We have also managed to source additional Digital Thermometers as these are left at the entrances to all the facilities as well as the sanitisers. This is just our small effort in trying to help to keep all our Golden Oldies Safe during these incredibly scary times. As we are aware a lot of the homes for safety sake are not allowing any visitors in.
Our fourth and double box trip for 2020 is currently finally underway.
A quick update on our current trip to distribute this desperately needed food aid and PPE supplies and we are truly grateful to finally having the wheels turning again. The truck and bakkie left Malelane on Wednesday the 30th to get to Musina so that they could have an early nights rest and be up and ready for the border first thing Thursday morning. However we all know “Murphy” and she really seems to love us, so at about 4pm Wednesday afternoon our clearing agent contacted me and said that with immediate effect from 1 October all commercial vehicles had to have Covid-19 tests done. This would cause a serious delay for the team basically already at the border. So instead of getting ready to settle down, they sped up and with a change of plans they quickly filled the vehicles with fuel, grabbed food for the who “knows how long we will wait” and headed straight for Beitbridge. By just after 9pm the team had moved up the long que on the SA side with a lot of begging and pleading and had received all their stamps on the SA side and moved into the que for the bridge. Just before 1am the team made it into the infamous “Dustbowl” with the bulk of the paperwork done it was now time for them to try and get some rest.
So that is a short version of the start of our current trip to Zims. As per usual we are starting off with a bang!!!!
Updated 11 October 2020: A huge Thank You to everyone who is / has supported us. We have 297 Boxes for our Golden Oldies Boxes Adopted so far, so only 391 to go. Then the Frail Care parcels and Kitchen Gifts. Come on guys we can do this, let’s keep the momentum going!! Everyone if I can ask you to share this email as far and wide as possible
Sometimes yours is the only GIFT they get!!
Please if you make a donation and are adopting one of our Grannies or Grandpas please send me an email on linda@zpsf.co.za.This is so that I can please keep track of who has been adopted. Thank You.
The current value of the Christmas single person parcels will be about R800 ($60) (£50). (SAME AS THE PAST 5 YEARS). Even if a group of friends make a joint donation to adopt a Golden Oldie or just add to the Christmas kitty for those who are not yet adopted. Your support will go a long way to help making them feel very special this Christmas. As usual things here at the office are hectic as we continue trying to raise funds for the Biggest trip of the year our Special Christmas one.
These food hampers serve 2 purposes.
1 They supply much needed food to the pensioner.
2 The pensioner then knows that someone cares about them
We are an officially registered Non-Profit Organization and Section 21A in South Africa and are registered with SARS as a Public Benefit Organization in terms of section 18A the Income Tax Act (Which means all South African donations are issued with a Tax Certificate and can be claimed back). PLEASE LET US KNOW IF YOU WOULD LIKE A TAX CERTIFICATE STATING ALL YOU DONATIONS. PLEASE NOTE THEY ARE ISSUED BASED ON OUR FINANCIAL PERIOD SO THE CURRENT ONES ARE FOR MARCH 2020-FEB 2021. They will be issued once our Financial Year End has been processed, so from about mid-April 2021. UK supporters can be issued with a Gift Aid Certificate via Betti-Ann McLean and the USA account is now a Registered 501(c)3 organization and as such Tax-deductible receipts available for USA donors via Alice Short.
Thank you so much for helping us support our “Golden Oldies” during these very difficult times. Your support is invaluable to us and us at the ZPSF would never be able to sustain our regular supply of relief parcels if it were not for donations such as yours. Your continued donations are a very important life line to them reminding them that we are continuously thinking about them and still care. All of this happens because of people like you, our Donors ensure our wheels keep turning, you are all truly amazing. THANK YOU and God Bless.
We hope everyone is keeping safe and healthy.
If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.
DOING WHAT WE SAY WE DO.
Head office South Africa contact details:
Linda Schultz – linda@zpsf.co.za – (C) 079 6082676 (T) 013 7900934
Johan Schultz – johan@zpsf.co.za – 082 4979328
Hannes Botha – hannes@zpsf.co.za – 084 5893221
