In celebration of Mandela Day, on 18 July, The Peninsula All-Suite Hotel staff have continued their efforts to support their local community, delivering 67 food parcels for the children of Christel House in Ottery, Cape Town.
Established in 2002, Christel House provides holistic support to impoverished students from early childhood through to early adulthood, offering food, healthcare, and education as well as focusing on developing their strength of character.
“We noticed that the team at Christel House were requesting additional supplies during Covid-19, which included food hampers, so our ‘Peninsula tribe’ stepped in to assist,” explains Chris Godenir, the General Manager of The Peninsula All-Suite Hotel.
“Each parcel was prepared under strict sanitary conditions and jam-packed with essential food items up to the value of R150 as additional support for the students and their families over the next month,” he adds.
Alongside their Mandela Day initiatives, the team at The Peninsula All-Suite Hotel have been supplying monthly food packages to the value of R500 to their colleagues who, before lockdown, were employed as casual workers at the hotel. They also continue to deliver 200 meals every Friday evening to the Culemborg bridge place of safety in the city centre.
At current, domestic and inbound leisure travel is still prohibited in South Africa, and the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA) notes a daily loss of tourism expenditure to the amount of R748m. Over 600 000 employees within the tourism value chain have applied for the UIF TERS program which came to an end in June. The end of this program means that employees around the country will not receive any income from this month onwards.
As much as we want to open our doors to domestic and international leisure travellers, the real task in front of us right now is to support each other,” explains Godenir.
“Those of us in the tourism sector are facing many challenges, and for our part, we want to do what we can, with what we have, to help to uplift those who are struggling. This Mandela Day we wanted to share the belief that every person has the wisdom, individually and together, to find ways to help each other to make it through these difficult and tumultuous times.”
For more info on the projects at The Peninsula All-Suite Hotel, please contact Brynn Rorich, Guest Services Manager, at +27 (0)21 430 7777 or guestserv@peninsula.co.za