A month after launching its 2019 Show You Care campaign, the Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID) has already successfully secured its first R25 000 in donations.
The aim of the three-month campaign, run by the CCID’s Social Development department, is to raise R100 000 by mid-October. The goal is ambitious but attainable if the initial support garnered continues at the current pace.
This early result confirms just how wonderfully Capetonians have embraced the campaign that is intended to give hope and dignity to the homeless community and to help the CCID’s key NGO partners further their invaluable work with people living on the street in the Central City.
“We are excited to reach the quarter-way mark in our bid to raise R100 000,” says Pat Eddy, Social Development Manager for the CCID. “We are very grateful for the support from the hundreds of Central City businesses who are promoting the campaign in their stores, restaurants or hotels by displaying our ‘table talkers’ and would like to thank members of the public for their generous donations, too.
“While we still have a long way to go, we are so heartened by the response to the Show you care campaign thus far,” she says.
Endorsing the campaign, Dan Plato, Executive Mayor of Cape Town, said: “I want to applaud the CCID on this caring initiative, as it is only by working together that we can tackle the challenges facing our society. The City has a number of programmes in place to assist the homeless, and campaigns such as the CCID’s Show You Care go a long way towards further supporting the many NGOs who play an important role in assisting the most vulnerable in our community.”
The campaign is driven through SnapScan, making it easy to support. The public and businesses alike can look out for the code and details of how to donate on the CCID’s social media pages, on posters around the city, as well as in more than 200 participating venues around the central city that are displaying close to 400 “table talkers” or posters.
Eddy says the funds raised by the campaign will be distributed to the CCID’s NGO partners and will go towards providing shelter space, food, clothing, work-based rehabilitation programmes and social services to those who find themselves destitute or down on their luck.
“Homelessness is not something that we can tackle on our own,” says Eddy. “It can only be combatted if all the major players – big business, the City, the NGO sector, SAPS, and the public – work together to find effective solutions. Our Show You Care Campaign is one of the many ways in which we aim to alleviate the plight of those less fortunate. It is also a quick and easy way for business and the public at large to collectively effect a meaning difference.”
Mayor Plato agreed: “If Capetonians want to help uplift those less fortunate than themselves, this is one of the ways they can show their support.”
The campaign also highlights the work of the CCID Social Development team of social and field workers that interacts closely with the NPO’s NGO partners and people living on the street on a daily basis to ensure that the homeless are made aware of shelters, food facilities and social services that are available to them.
This campaign complements the department’s Winter Readiness Campaign, which is designed to help the homeless during the bitterly cold Cape winter. During the Winter Readiness campaign, which has already been rolled out, 2 500 care bags and 1 500 raincoats were distributed to partner NGOs; 40 beds, blankets and mattress protectors for clients were subsidised for clients of Youth Solutions Africa (over and above the 18 beds the CCID subsidises at the facility throughout the year); 350 male and 200 female pairs of shoes were distributed to NGO partners plus 32 pairs of safety boots for Khulisa Social Solutions; soup, instant porridge and rusks to the value of R50 000 was donated to the City’s Safe Space; and food to the value of R53 000 was subsidised at Youth Solutions Africa.
Issued on behalf of Sharon Sorour-Morris, CCID Communications Manager by Irving Partners.
For press queries:
Bryan Hefke
Account Manager
Irvine Partners
bryan@irvinepartners.co.za(021) 462 3303
Sharon Sorour-Morris
Manager: Communications
Central City Improvement District
sharon@capetownccid.org
082 216 0835