DURBAN - HARTLEY Road Primary School’s Grade 1 pupils donated more than R4 800 in cash towards the Daily News Milk Fund.
The pupils have adopted the Milk Fund as part of their fund-raising campaign for the past two years, and were excited to hand over the money barrel to the Daily News, on Thursday.
Umair Haffejee, 6, said the fund was important to make sure that those who were in need were taken care of.
“The fund is for the poor children who are without food and milk at the end of the year, so they can enjoy the holiday season just as we do,” said Umair.
Fouziah Rangraje, the fund-raising co-ordinator at the school, said it was introduced to parents as part of the pupils’ outreach programme.
“Every pupil in our school does an outreach programme, and this milk fund was introduced to parents and the Grade 1s during orientation. It was well received by both the parents and the children which was key to getting them to commit to it.
“Fortunately, many of our pupils have good privileges, and this is contributing to their life skills so they can understand the importance of giving to the underprivileged kids who are in the same age group, who go without milk and food,” said Rangraje.
Rangraje said just like many things, the school’s fund-raising slowed down due to the coronavirus and added that the children did their best and continued with their donations towards the fund.
“The pandemic obviously had an impact on the fund last year, but the children are often sensitive to the issue of setting aside money for the fund, because they feel it is their responsibility to contribute, to a point where even when we forgot about it, they were our reminders,” said Rangraje.
Roderigo Chetty, 7, said giving to the poor should be everyone’s language of love and caring for one another.
“It is important to help the poor because they would do the same and help you if you were in the same situation,” said Roderigo.
The Daily News Milk and Welfare Fund is a Public Benefit Organisation (PBO) that relies on cash donations from the public and businesses in order to supply milk, milk powder and high-energy porridge to needy crèches and preschools in KwaZulu-Natal.
Daily News employees established the fund in 1937 to assist the less fortunate members of the public around the Christmas period, particularly children.
Independent Newspapers Community Projects Manager, Sushie Munsamy, thanked the pupils for their hard work throughout the two years of fund-raising.
“On behalf of the fund members I wish to thank the Grade 1 pupils of Hartley Road Primary for their contributions. We have grateful beneficiaries on our database. We can assure them that the funds will be used to buy milk and energy porridge for our 120 organisations in Durban and surrounding areas.”
Daily News