Employees rally to provide flood relief support for deserving organisations

Jackie Psannis from the Robin Hood Foundation received the cheque from Pramy Moodley, chief financial officer for Sappi Southern Africa: “Thank you Sappi for choosing us to help those who aren't able to help themselves,” she said

“Phase two of our flood relief efforts will be helping families who have lost everything to rebuild from scratch and this is where your Sappi funding will be used,” said Tanya Altshuler and Rachel Kinloch from The Angel Network on receiving their cheque

Two such organisations: The Angel Network and The Robin Hood Foundation, were front and centre in rallying the support needed to give people a hand up after the floods. But this was not a once-off call-to-action for either of them – both work tirelessly throughout the year providing relief and support to those in need. Their focus on finding solutions where others see problems was just one of the reasons that led Sappi to choose them as beneficiaries for their recent global employee donation drive in support of those affected by the KZN flood. After making an initial monetary donation to The Gift of the Givers organisation, Sappi launched an employee donation drive, which ran for a month and encouraged Sappi employees to make in-kind and monetary donations towards the cause. Representatives from the two organisations recently paid a visit to Sappi offices in Umhlanga, where ladies from the Sappi Women of Worth committee met them to hand over what had been collected from employees from all over the country. The overall donation included some generous monetary donations from Sappi employees abroad in Europe and America, which contributed to the Sappi-matched and supplemented donation of R125,000 for each organisation.

“The Angel Network Durban has been working tirelessly on the ground to offer relief to affected communities after the recent devastating floods and we have assisted thousands of community members with food parcels, blankets, fresh drinking water, towels, toiletries, sanitary pads, buckets, water purifying sachets, clothes and mattresses in various hard-hit areas around KwaZulu-Natal. As you can imagine, the biggest hurdle was trying to access communities where roads and bridges had been washed away. Phase two of our flood relief efforts will be helping families who have lost everything to rebuild from scratch and this is where your Sappi funding will be used. So thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your generosity”, said Tanya Altshuler when she accepted the cheque and the donations of collected goods.

Lending a helping hand to load all the donations into the vehicles for the two beneficiary organisations are the ‘Men of muscle’ Chief Sambo, Richman Ndlovu and  Lungisani Buthelezi  from Sappi

Sappi employees collected and donated goods and cash – these, bolstered by two generous cash donations from the company, were handed over to the two organisations by the WoW (Women of Worth) team at the Sappi offices in Umhlanga. Chief financial officer for Sappi SA, Pramy Moodley (seated centre) handed over the cheques

Jackie Psannis had the following to say: “The Robin Hood Foundation are beyond grateful for having been chosen by Sappi for your generous donations from your amazing staff and for Sappi as a company, matching your team’s donations! Our mandate has always been ‘from our hands directly into the hands of those in need’ and with Sappi's life-changing donations we can continue to help the vulnerable, who are still a long way from getting anywhere close to where they were prior to the floods. We can also start getting back to our core projects, which we have been running all year round for the past 17 years . Meeting the Sappi team to receive our cheque was as special a feeling as being able to help our beneficiaries. A team filled with giving hearts, upbeat action-taking humans and a true show of South Africans making genuine impact in areas where our country really needs it. Thank you Sappi for choosing us and for the opportunity to unite forces to continue making genuine change in our beautiful country and helping those who aren't able to help themselves and building those who can.”

“Our employees and their spirit of selfless giving make us truly proud and we are delighted that members from all over the world have rallied to the call and made such generous contributions towards these organisations that work so hard to make South Africa a better place,” commented Pramy Moodley, chief financial officer for Sappi Southern Africa as she handed over the cheques to the organisations’ representatives.

For more information about the two organisations and to find out how you can help, please visit their Facebook pages – The Angel Network Durban and The Robin Hood Foundation South Africa or their websites www.theangelnetwork.co.za and https://robinhoodfoundation.co.za/.