City Lodge Hotels’ corporate social responsibility calendar saw Mandela Day on 18 July become the highlight of charitable activities across its 59 hotels, with hotel teams involved in a range of initiatives benefiting national and local charities, alongside innovative recycling and upcycling projects.
Highlights of the day included:
- Hotels around East Rand Airport have once again supported the Johannesburg Children’s Home, providing a deep clean and painting of cottages and donating food.
- A Sandton hotel has supported vital maintenance at Ikorwa Hope Children’s Home.
- At a hotel in Pretoria, they prepared soup for the Rose Happy Times Nursing Home and served cupcakes and juice to children from the Alka Foundation.
- The Umhlanga hotel organized the Amazing Race in collaboration with Reach for a Dream Foundation, made sandwiches and donated to Chefs with Compassion’s #67000L Soup Drive.
- Team George worked with 145 volunteers to pack 143 boxes totaling 30,888 meals for Rise Against Hunger.
- Staff from the hotel and support office in Cape Town treated the children of farm workers in Demersfontein and Thokozani to lunch and fun activities including a colouring competition and a magician show, and handed out school shoes, scarves, beanies, recycled school shirts and recycled soap.
The highlight of the day’s activities in Cape Town was handing over school shirts made from discarded linen from the group’s hotels to the children of farm workers. Recycling a double bed sheet can make four school shirts for kindergarten and primary school children. As discarded linen is available every year, we plan to expand this initiative to other hotels in the group and have it benefit different organizations and children.
One example of recycling success is the new soap made from used soap and shampoo distributed by CSI. Bruce Turner, owner of The Bespoke Amenities Company (TBAC), an amenities supplier to City Lodge Hotel, has developed a process to remove the outer layer from used hotel soap and shampoo, sanitize and shred the core, and finally transform the mixture into new soap with a pleasant scent and marbled pattern. To mark the occasion, children from Diemersfontein and Thokozani Winery were presented with one of these soaps each, packed in a branded cloth bag.
Hotels that donate their used soap or shampoo can receive recycled soap for the CSI initiative. This circular economy initiative, driven by Bruce from TBAC, benefits people and the planet while minimizing waste.
Currently, the venture is only available in Gauteng, but there are plans to expand to other regions and hotel groups, creating an industry-wide initiative that will also generate employment opportunities.
Lindiwe Sangweni Sid, Chief Operating Officer, City Lodge Hotels, said: “This period of giving has warmed our hearts as much as those who have benefited from our efforts. As a hotel group with ‘people caring’ at its core, we cherish opportunities like this to make a difference. We do charitable work throughout the year, but Mandela Day reminds us that generosity comes in many forms, from goods and services to time and compassion. We are delighted to be part of this global day of giving.”
To quote the final words of our national hero, Nelson Mandela: “It is not merely the fact that we have lived that counts; it is the difference we make to the lives of others that determines the meaning of the lives we lead.”
