School appeals for lunch club items

A Chatsworth school is appealing for assistance towards their lunch club to help feed children who have no meals.

Southlands Secondary School in Havenside is in need of sponsorships or donations for its lunch club.

The school needs sponsorship of 15 loaves of bread, three days a week; butter; polony; peanut butter; jam; canned beans; cheese and cans of tuna.

Sandy Ishwar, a teacher at the school who is involved in the club, said they feed over 100 children each day who cannot afford to bring lunch to school.

"We did have sponsors last year, but this year it has been a challenge. We need to provide sandwiches for three days a week. If we receive pockets of potatoes or items that need to be cooked, then another teacher and I prepare them at home and bring them to school to make the sandwiches. There are some learners who live on their own, so we try to give them extra bread if we have," she said.

Ishwar said Food 4 Life supplied vegetable biryani on a Friday and a Sai Centre group provided sandwiches once a week.

The school, with an enrolment of about 900 learners, caters for children from Chatsworth, Lamontville and uMlazi. Their annual fee is R4,500. They, however, receive less than 20% of the fees.

In a letter signed by the principal of the school, it stated that last year, they identified a number of learners who came from households living below the poverty line and could not afford food for daily meals.

"This is a major concern for the school and unfortunately the school does not have the funds to assist these learners with food hampers. We have a lunch club that provides fresh sandwiches to learners. This is done through donations from parents and educators. We have also started a canned food drive to collect and distribute to these families, however, this has not been successful," stated the letter.

Ishwar said she has also appealed to the community for basic toiletries, such as sanitary pads, soap, toothpaste, roll-on, toothbrushes and small lotions to make up packs for 25 girls and 25 boys.

She added that the school faced several challenges, including not having any funds to purchase books.

"We serve a poor community that cannot afford school fees. There is a desperate need for 80 Platinum Grade 9 social sciences textbooks. We have a paper crisis at school, so we cannot make up worksheets, and there is a major challenge in teaching geography and history without any resources," said Ishwar.