On the 18th of July South Africa was abuzz in celebrating what would have been Nelson Mandela, the father of our Democracy’s 100th birthday. Locally, all the way in Bloem #BloemGirlsRock was ready to finally hand out the shoes we had been running a campaign for for 3 months. The whole campaign was run solely on social media in a bid to raise enough funds to buy 115 school shoes to donate to some of the learners at Atlehang Senior Secondary School in Rocklands.
The morning started out with an opening and prayer from the school’s principal Mr Thibinyane and then went over to our Founder and Cheerleader Mags Shivanda, introduced by our very own BloemGirlsRock MC Sebabatso Mokoena. Mags shared her experiences as a former Atlehang learner with the scholars. She also let them in on how the foundation was started, what we continue to do and why we were there that day. The school shoes were then handed out from a list that had been compiled by the school with their shoe sizes. Because we had received more donations than we’d expected, we were able to buy extra shoes and were able to reach out to learners outside of the school.
We would like to thank each and everyone who donated a pair or even pairs, to everyone who helped us on social media and on the ground, everyone who recruited their friends and families to donate and all our volunteers. We also received feedback on one of our accounts from one of the learners who was grateful to have received a pair of shoes herself https://twitter.com/mmukibeleng/status/1020091817541488640
As the late great Nelson Mandela once said, “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.”
