By Cortney Wright

According to Donna Noble, the corporate communication manager for eBucks, this is the second year that the eBucks volunteer team took part in donating items to learners at the primary school. “Some of the learners have to walk far distances to get to school every day and so their shoes do not last that long. This is why donating shoes was important to us and also because it is winter and cold” says Noble.

The eBucks volunteer group raised R20 000 prior to the event to purchase the Tuffies school shoes, socks and lucky packets. The learners who got the donated items form part of families surviving on social grants. These learners were chosen from grades one to five from the social grant group and totalled up to 210 learners.

The event commenced at 10:40 where the learners entered the school hall and listened to a speech given by the principal, Frik Visagie. He welcomed everyone and explained about the project and what the learners would be receiving. Visage also asked each learner to write a thank you card to the eBucks volunteer group to show their appreciation. Following this, the learners were given their shoes, socks and lucky packets.

According to Noble, the eBucks team had come to the school a few weeks prior to the event to measure the learner’s feet so that the right shoe sizes were bought and the event would be guaranteed to flow smoothly. On the day of the handover, the learners then simply told the volunteers their shoe size and were given a pair of shoes.