Cape Town - A Kraaifontein non-profit organisation, the KWS De Novo Soup Kitchen, held a pensioner and cancer awareness luncheon at the weekend.
The soup kitchen, which was founded in 2019 just before the country was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, fed and treated about 100 special guests at the function.
According to Russel Kinnear, one of its founding members, while the non-profit organisation regularly hosts afternoon events for pensioners in the De Novo community, Saturday’s event was particularly special as the organisation had planned informative fun sessions for its attendants.
The community of De Novo is situated on Old Paarl Road in Kraaifontein, Cape Town.
Kinnear said: “For the past three years, we have hosted special events at least once a year for our pensioners, where we treat them to a lovely lunch as a token of our appreciation towards the elderly in our community.
“When we were planning how to go about hosting our event this year, we were approached by two of our sponsors, Estelle and Ronald Van Rooyen, who had the idea to incorporate cancer awareness for the event,” he said.
“Seeing as it was Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we thought it was a great idea. However, because we service an entire community, we wanted to make sure we raise awareness about different types of cancer, so we inform men too,” he said.
Kinner said De Novo Soup Kitchen also invited a Sassa official to inform and assist pensioners on how to apply for grant assistance.
“We also had invited William Kinnear from Sassa to come and explain to our elderly how to apply for any type of grant. In our communities, our elderly most of the time are the ones looking after their grandchildren and at times foster children. They need this type of assistance,” Kinnear said.
The Soup Kitchen also invited famous Suidooster actor Cedwyn Joel to come and engage the group of pensioners. As well as participate in some of the fun games the organisation had planned.
The KWS De Novo Soup Kitchen feeds about 240-280 people three times a week in the local community, whilst also supporting residents from surrounding farms in the area.
It is a self-sustaining initiative but also welcomes sponsorships and donations from institutions, businesses and generous members of the public.
