With the hunger situation becoming more dire by the day, Ladles of Love founder Danny Diliberto is sending out a plea to Capetonians to continue with their support of the sandwich drive with a 24 hour ‘sarmiethon’ and is calling for much needed donations as funds dry up and donor fatigue sets in.
In an effort to raise money, Diliberto has committed to making sandwiches for 24 hours on 12 & 13 September (Saturday and Sunday) as a massive fundraiser.
Ladles have partnered with Work & Co and will be using their NOVA workspace movable van where Danny will be making the sandwiches stationed on the SeaPoint promenade.
“Our hope is that this sarmiethon will create massive awareness and bring in the funds we so desperately need,” says Diliberto. “I will be making sandwiches for a 24 hour period and will be ‘sold off’ using Quicket to raise funds driving the call to action for donations.”
Ladles will be selling sarmiethon slots for every half hour at R150 per slot – with the message “donate R150 and feed someone for a month”.
The idea is that there will be live lucky draws for every slot, then the winners will be called to go and make sandwiches with Danny in the NOVA for that session (2 winners per half hour).
“We also want to sell slots to corporates for the “graveyard shift” during curfew – they will purely sponsor me for that hour to essentially keep going,” says Diliberto. “The entire duration of the event will be live streamed on the Ladles of Love Facebook page.”
Simultaneously Diliberto is calling for people to join the Ladles “Sarmie Revolution”.
“This is a huge challenge to continue the production of sandwiches in the Cape Peninsula. Since lock down Capetonians have made 2, 507, 977 sandwiches but they need this to continue,” he says.
Danny will kick off the challenge with his 24 hour Sarmiethon and will then challenge companies, groups, clubs, schools, etc as ‘Sarmie Army’s’ to join him in making as many sandwiches. A bit like the ‘ice-bucket’ challenger he will tag the next organisation to keep the Sarmie Revolution going. The first challenge will begin on Monday 14th after Danny completes his 24 hours and challenges his next ‘Sarmie Army’.
“We understand that without ongoing funding our operation is not sustainable, but the hunger is here now and if we are not careful we could have our next pandemic so much bigger than COVID, and this pandemic is called starvation,” he adds.
He points out that as more people become unemployed and as more people start using up their retrenchment packages, more and more people are flipping below the breadline. “All these people start to turn to the community soup kitchens for food, putting so much pressure on the supply chain of food especially as donor fatigue starts to set in and the money begins to dry up.”
Therefore he is calling on everyone to continue pulling together to continue donating to help Ladles drive food to the communities in need and is asking everyone to join their #humanityinaction campaign in the spirit of Ubuntu by making sandwiches or donating.
Please go to https://www.ladlesoflove.org.za and make a donation. Whatever you can afford. R150 feeds a person daily for a month. It all helps.
