Times are tough for all of us at the moment while the country’s in lockdown, so why don’t we focus on the good news? Here are 5 businesses that are making a real difference during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On the plus side, you’re not sitting in traffic every day, and you’re not blowing your budget hitting the town every night. Where does that leave you? With time to spare. Why not put it to good use and brush up on your culinary skills? Yuppiechef is offering 30 days’ free access to their Online Cooking School. You can join professional chefs, including Peter Goffe-Wood and Sarah Graham, from the comfort of your kitchen for a series of video tutorials, in-depth theory notes, recipes and quizzes.
Colourplus Textiles launched the “Mask for All” initiative, which will see them delivering 1 million masks to disadvantaged areas. Owner Henry John Ludski says his staff have been working around the clock to make the potentially lifesaving masks.
“We are living in dire times. People all over the world are dying in huge numbers and we have to take every measure possible to mitigate the impact of this insidious disease,” Ludski said on Instagram. “We are being inundated with demands from so many community organisations to provide them with masks and we are trying to meet every request. Thankfully, my company has been able to obtain special dispensation from authorities to continue working throughout the lockdown.”
By Sunday 29 March 2020 more than 3 000 protective masks were already distributed to children in Cape Town’s Cape Flats.
Under normal working conditions, Fleet Star Trailers rents out trailers for film sets. But this company has stepped up and loaned 4 triple-sized units to the Cape of Good Hope SPCA. This means that the 23 staff members who will spend the full 21-day lockdown away from their families on the SPCA’s premises will have a comfortable place to stay.
“The trailers are normally used for the international casts of movies and we supply them for the stars to relax in when they’re not shooting,” Martin Offersen, marketing manager for Fleet Star told Cape Talk. “A colleague of ours saw the NSPCA post and gave me a call, and we said yes we’ll make a plan.”
“We were imagining rows of mattresses and sleeping bags on our lecture room floor but thank goodness for [Fleet Star] who came forward to sponsor some wonderful caravan-style dwellings to give our staff a measure of comfort and privacy,” the Cape of Good Hope SPCA said on Facebook.
Springbok and DHL Stormers captain Siya Kolisi’s newly formed Kolisi Foundation has pledged to supply more than 4 000 litres of hand sanitiser and 400 reusable goggles and face shields to the Khayelitsha Hospital in Cape Town and the Livingston Hospital in Port Elizabeth.
“We as a nation should be proud of the way our President has laid down the law. It shows how important this is,” Kolisi said in a statement. “But we can’t leave everything to the government. We all have a role to play. For some of us, that is to stay at home right now, and for some of us, it’s to do a bit more than that. It’s time for all of us to stand together and show a united front. We’re definitely stronger together.”
Are you starting to feel like the walls are closing in? Are the kids getting bored? The good news is you can escape for a bit and go on a virtual game drive. WildEarth’s safariLIVE, an award-winning live safari, is hosted by expert game rangers who will take you on two game drives a day via YouTube.
Catch the morning drive between 5:30-8:30am or the afternoon drive between 3:30-6:30pm and experience the wildlife at Djuma Private Game Reserve, Sabi Sands and & Beyond Ngala Private Game Reserve. Plus, there’s a live chat function, which means you can interact directly with the rangers and ask them questions.
Like these 5 businesses, there are many others that go out of their way to make life better for others during the lockdown. And we’d like to know about them! Send us an email and let us know about the everyday heroes in your community who are doing great things during the COVID-19 pandemic.
