Soup kitchen providing comfort in cold Kariega

A non-profit organisation running a soup kitchen for the needy in Kariega in the Eastern Cape says they have seen an increase in the number of beneficiaries. Mother’s Gift provides food weekly in different parts of Kariega.

Temperatures in this area are below 15 degrees as the cold front hit the Eastern Cape this weekend and for some of these residents the warm cup of soup is their first and last meal of the day.

John Isaac, who runs the organisation, says it was established by his late mother and has been feeding the community for a number of years.

He says they now feed about 400 people weekly.

“The Mother’s Gift started in 2008 where my mother had 10 kids in KwaNobuhle, she provided from her own pocket. We feed kids, plus minus three to four hundred kids a week. My heart went out this morning when I see some of them don’t have shoes, they were standing in this cold just to have something to eat it might be their last, that’s’ what the Mother’s Gift is standing for, to provide for these kids.”

Kabha residents and beneficiaries of the soup kitchen are grateful for this initiative.

“It’s a privilege this morning to have the mothers here in Kabha. It’s a very good thing to provide something for the kids but the concern here in Kabha is our youth, there is no work for them, so they stay here in our area and do nothing.”

Another resident says, “Most of the time when there are soup kitchens and food handed out, it is the children. Some come from very disadvantaged houses where, both parents might not work, there might be drug or alcohol abuse, in the house so for them this might be their first and their last meal for the day.”