Port Alfred Christian Development and Upliftment Centre

(Section 21 Company) Non-Profit Organization No:  014-891 NPO

It gives us great pleasure sharing our outreach programme and vision with you.

The Soup kitchen was started in 1998 after an appeal from a local black school in our local
township of Port Alfred was made, that some of their pupils had fainted after eating paper
to “still the hunger pains”.  A few volunteers started making soup in their various homes.  They decided that they needed to step in and take action and started off by feeding
18 people. We have now grown to a stage where we feed between 400 – 450 people on a Monday and between 750 and 850 meals on a Wednesday.   Our goal for 2008 is to be able to feed on a Friday as well.

We presently operate from “Harris House” which premises has been donated to us (with all expenses paid including rates and taxes, water and lights) at 42 van de Riet Street in Port Alfred since August 2003.  This has allowed us to grow and our vision is to continue growing to feed on a daily basis.

We are totally reliant on donations which we receive and have an audited and managed accounting system.  All funds are used expressly for feeding the needy as everyone involved in helping are volunteers therefore there are no salaries etc.  

We provide an extremely healthy and vitamin enriched soup together with bread & buns.  We get a lot of our bread, buns and also veggies donated to us by the various supermarkets in Port Alfred.  We also have to purchase of lot of bread depending on the quantities being donated for each feeding day. 

Our main feeding point is the town refuse dump, where the poorest of the poor eke out their survival.    

In addition to this we supply a school for handicapped children, school for handicapped adults, an old age home, a pre-primary school, a safe house and a medical clinic, all of which are in the Port Alfred local townships.  We also have a programme whereby we purchase a protein and multi-vitamin powder which is mixed up like a porridge called "More Vite".   This is given in 1kg sachets to the various recipients for the week.    We make sandwiches and supply More Vite to a farm school for about 22 children.  We also provide hospice with soup which we freeze in 1 Kg tubs together with bread which they can then take out to the rural areas and give to their patients before administering medication, as most of these patients won't have eaten a meal in some time. We feed approx 50 adults and street drifters who come to the premises on soup kitchen days with lovely hot soup and bread.  We also support and feed 2 orphanages - one in Alexandria and one in Bathurst - and  about 50 people at  the refuse dump in Bathurst.

Various volunteers go and do collections on a regular basis at the various pick up points.  This is then brought to the soup kitchen and sorted out and frozen as necessary for the next feeding day.

The soup pot is switched on at 6:00 am and the various ingredients added. We have a basic recipe but a lot of extra veggies and meat is added.  Stock is made on a regular basis from meat carcases and chicken which we receive.  This is the boiled up for a couple of hours and the stock is then frozen into 5kg tubs and date marked for use as required. Once the bones have been boiled up they are delivered to the SPCA.

The veggies are brought in from the various points by volunteers and again if we do not receive enough we have to purchase. This is then first minced through the industrial mincer and then put into the liquidizer.  We also put a full pocket of minced potatoes into each pot of soup as this is the base of the soup.

Another outreach project is our clothing section where we acquire second hand clothes and blankets and distribute them to all the above areas. We manage to hand out at the dump area as well as people in the townships or wherever else needy areas are  highlighted to us, at least 3 times per annum.

We also have a sewing project, where volunteers offer sewing lessons to unemployed women. This is proving popular and the upliftment this gives to the women is remarkable, especially in self esteem as well as a means to support themselves.
Our bigger goal is to re-locate to larger premises where we can offer a 5 day a week feed, with the facility of overnight dormitories for street drifters, educational classrooms and a Multipurpose Centre.

We can be contacted on any of the numbers listed below to make your pledges:

Debra Harris  083 260 0334
Helmut Hartlebb  076 788 2771
Littie Price  083 750 8591

Please visit our website for more information or e-mail us.

We would like to take this opportunity of thanking each and everyone who supports us during this campaign for a very worthy cause.
     

Name of Account :  P.A.C.D.&U.C.
Name of Bank :  Absa
Branch Code :  529507
Account No :  9173283376
Type of Account :  Money market