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President Cyril Ramaphosa's address on Sunday 15 March sent shockwaves throughout the country when he announced that an extended school holiday would be implemented as one way to curb the spread of Covid-19 in South Africa.
But sadly for a host of pupils throughout the country, school closures mean far more than just skipping classes.
At many underprivileged schools throughout the country, as many as 9 million learners are supplied with lunch through the National School Feeding Programme.
Alarmingly, in the majority of cases, this is the only substantial meal received for the day.
Thankfully, a few good South Africans have stepped up to the plate.
Cans With Purpose
For brothers Brad and Jared Stern this meant launching a website-based food supply initiative called Cans With Purpose.
Cans With Purpose works by raising funds and donations in order to buy canned food to help address the need among underprivileged South African learners.
And in just two days, Cans With Purpose has already received massive support from South Africans who have donated R 25 000 towards the cause.
All proceeds collected by Cans With Purpose will now be donated to Afrika Tikkun for distribution in their community centres in Mfuleni, Cape Town; as well as Orange Farm and Braamfontein in Johannesburg.
"We're so grateful for the incredible response so far and are very excited to see Cans With Purpose grow even more," says Brad, who urges South Africans not to "lose sight of the fact that there are others whose basic needs are not being met every day... it's up to us to help."
To donate or find out more about Cans With Purpose visit Superiate.com.
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'A caring community school'
Recognising the need at its school, Camps Bay High in the Western Cape has also started a food parcel initiative to assist families.
Taking to Instagram, the school shared that it would be supplying food hampers "every week for the next 3 weeks " to those families in need.
"We are a caring community school, and we recognised that the next couple of weeks may be quite tough for some of our learners as the unplanned extended break will put additional financial pressure on their families, particularly those who do not receive other assistance from bursary programmes or sponsors. So, we decided to put together a food hamper for these students identified by their tutor teachers as possibly being in need of assistance."
During such uncertain times, it is heartwarming to see South Africans rising to the occasion, and if it's done any good, it's inspired South Africans to address the many inequalities that have gone unaddressed for far too long.
We applaud these efforts and have no doubt that there are many more South Africans out there doing their bit and we'd love to hear from you.
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