Companies within the Transit Group have joined forces to bring food, blankets and clothing to the needy in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro. The “Winter Woolly Week” project is being run in partnership with the Community Chest, which is responsible for the pallet-loads of donations that were collected “over much more than a week. It basically runs throughout the year,” says Ryno van Niekerk – branch manager of Transit Air Freight in Port Elizabeth. This year’s Winter Woolly Week was the most successful one ever run by the Community Chest in Nelson Mandela Bay. They collected more than R60 000 in cash, which is used to buy nutritional porridge for the children. Over 130 collection boxes were filled with food, clothing, blankets and other necessities. Collection boxes are placed at Caltex garages in the Eastern and Western Cape, as well as General Motors’ outlets. In addition, the Transit Group has held collection drives for food, blankets and clothing at all its branches across the country. “We also donated R5 500 to the project,” he says. The Port Elizabeth office went out to the Masimanyane Soup kitchen to hand out donations to the poor and elderly. Started by the Despatch community in response to high rates of unemployment-driven poverty and teenage pregnancy, the soup kitchen has been serving the people of neighbouring townships for more than a decade. Transit Road Freight was responsible for taking the collection boxes to the Caltex outlets in Cape Town, and bringing the donations to Nelson Mandela Bay.
