Cooked, served with love

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MOSSEL BAY NEWS - Providing soup or a cooked meal to 1 200 people twice a week must be co-ordinated like a military exercise.

It's not for the fainthearted.

Fortunately, William Sam is a military veteran, but not of Uncle Sam, of the Cape Corps. He is used to organisation and precision. A proud, neat cadet in his youth, William was national co-ordinator of the Cape Corps Veterans' Association for three years.

PHOTO GALLERY: William Sam serving soup of love

He runs the Community Soup Drive in Mossel Bay - from his home in Highway Park, near the Pinnacle Point and Louis Fourie Road intersection.

The drive is a non-profit organisation.

Woolworths at Langeberg Mall in Voorbaai provides food which is still fresh but past its sell-by date.

Prepare vegetables

On Monday afternoons William's wife Jeanette and volunteers prepare the vegetables and other ingredients and on Tuesdays the gas is fired up to make the meal.

By 14:00 on Tuesdays, about 1 200 people have lined up in Learjet Street to get a cooked meal and two slices of bread from William's home. The meals are in polystyrene "take-away" containers. Thursdays are soup days. The samp, beans, lentils, split peas or barley are soaked the day before.

Four years old

The Community Soup Drive is four years old this month. William started it in June 2019 after his friend, Martin Draay, passed away. Martin had just started a soup kitchen before he died of a heart attack. At his funeral, the priest said his project should continue, so William decided he would do it.

When it is pointed out that he might be keeping people from earning their own keep because they are reliant on the soup drive, William says it is planned that able-bodied adults must bring recyclable items such as paper and plastics in order to earn a meal or soup. Funds raised from handing in bags of recyclables will be used to buy provisions for the soup kitchen.

Of those who benefit from the soup kitchen, 70% are schoolchildren. What was most impressive on Tuesday this week was the love with which the meals are handed out. The volunteers have huge smiles and they hug the children and disabled, especially, making them feel special.

Pots

William has two 100 litre pots and a 60 litre pot at his home.

He has the necessary certificates from Garden Route District Municipality, allowing him to make and provide meals.

"We are grateful for the provisions from Woolworths, enabling us to make meals, but we always need soup ingredients," William says. These include stock cubes, samp and pulses such as split peas, dried beans and lentils. Some of the polystyrene containers are donated, but some must be bought by the Community Soup Drive.

It costs R650 to fill a 19kg gas bottle including the transport to and from the gas filling station. William would appreciate help with this greatly.

No cash needs to be given, he says.