Constantia volunteers beamed with excitement at Constantia Village on Mandela Day when they helped Ladles of Love break a sandwich-making world record.
Ladles of Love collected 304 583 sandwiches in just one hour with the help of the Constantia Community Action Network (CAN)
and other volunteers around the city.
The number far exceeded their target of 125 000 as well as the current world record of 57 662 sandwiches made in an hour.
In honour of Madiba, people across Cape Town came together and made the sandwiches at various points between 10am and 11am on Saturday July 18.
The sandwiches were then distributed to NGOs in vulnerable communities across the city.
Constantia Can collected sandwiches from the public at their depots in Constantia Village and Chardonnay Deli.
Ladles of Love is a non-profit, volunteer soup kitchen for the homeless. More recently it has broadened its reach to help communities hard hit by the impact of the Covid-19 lockdown.
Constantia Can was established at the beginning of lockdown (“Volunteers do all they can in lockdown,” Constantiaberg Bulletin, April 30).
The Can project started through the Cape Town Together Facebook page, which encouraged ordinary people to respond to the pandemic by seeing to the non-medical needs of vulnerable people in their communities.
There are now over 150 Can groups across Cape Town. They organise themselves and collect food and donations for the needy.
Better-off communities are helping poorer ones. Constantia Can has partnered with Khayelitsha Site B, where many of the 250 000-odd residents need food relief.
With Ladles of Love, as well as the support of Constantia residents and sponsors, Constantia Can has distributed more than 12 tons of hot meals to its community partners in Khayelitsha Site B since early April, and since June it has delivered over 3.5 tons of groceries to 18 soup kitchens every week, according to Maria Hauck, one of the coordinators for Constantia Can.
This, along with 12 000 loaves of sandwiches and 1 500 meal kits (a donation pack containing rice, peas or lentils, a dry soup packet and salt and herbs), were feeding 3 000 people, mostly children, she said.
Samara Stern, the Ladles of Love volunteer who started its sandwich drive, said while the record breaking was exciting, the main aim was to continue to change the Covid-19 story by feeding millions of people in dire need right now.
To find out more about Constantia Can, follow them on Facebook or email constantiacan@gmail.com