It has been a brutal year. We launched the new Baywatch newsletter (note to anyone else thinking about launching a newsletter - it is roughly 100,000 times more difficult than you think). One day, my colleague Angela and I spoke to each other 42 times. We had to witness our city, Nelson Mandela Bay, buckle under the onslaught of bad politics, crazy Trump tariffs, crazier criminals and the manufacturing sector stumbling and job losses.
So when you, our lovely, big-hearted readers, politely asked if we would be doing our yearly project with SA Harvest to feed needy families, I had to take a moment. It involved a cup of Earl Grey tea and a slice of fruitcake (one of the reasons why I love December) - strictly for revival purposes. Suitably fortified I phoned Ozzy Nel from SA Harvest.
We spent the next 20 minutes first discussing how tired we are. “I thought I was too tired for our project this year,” I said. “But the need is so great.” Ozzy agreed. So we picked our collective selves up and rallied - and here we are: Launching the SA Harvest/DM Festive Season Buckets of Nutrition Food Drive tomorrow, when 200 families will get a bumper bucket - cookies and sweeties for the kids included - to last them through the festive season.
But I really want to post about the woman we saw today when we arrived at the facility where we were packing our buckets. She jumped in front of Ozzy’s car - like she wanted him to drive over her. She had a little brown dog protecting her. It is the second time in a week that she has tried this. People are barely hanging on. This young woman is broken by poverty and the desperation of not having enough to get away. She only has her little dog - and it is adorable. She can’t take her psychiatric medicine - meant to help her with a lifetime of extreme trauma - because she doesn’t have food. One of our buckets will go to her. The other 199 will go to families who are barely hanging on. Please support us - the more donations we get the more people we can help. We are all just walking each other home.
This is what will be in the buckets distributed in the next few weeks (I originally planned to spend time next week on my new inflatable flamingo - just floating in the pool, but Suzanne has been shelved for more pressing business. Email me if you need any help! Otherwise all the info you want can be found here: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article_tag/ozzy-nel/.