29 February 2012
Bridge Drive
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Wide support and smiles January 2012 |
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Aurecon employees and friends; Dave Bekker, |
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| A deep investment in the youth and future generations is a key philosophy at Focus on iThemba. Mirroring this sentiment were a group of motivated Aurecon employees and their friends who came together on 22 May to plant a fruit and vegetable garden on the iThemba campus in Hillcrest. iThemba, an innovative non-profit organisation, provides quality foster care and education to orphans and vulnerable children. The garden performs three functions; it will yield nutritional produce for many years to come; play an educational role for the iThemba children; and lastly the disadvantaged children who attend the iThemba Academy on scholarships will be able to share the harvest with their caregivers and others in the Embo community. |
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 Aurecon employees hard at work on one of the new beds for the iThemba vegetable garden |
“The Aurecon staff who attended the event thoroughly enjoyed the gardening and interacting with the warm iThemba staff and children,” said Karen King, Hydrologist at Aurecon. “Such events help to authenticate Aurecon’s key value of fostering human achievement in the contribution that we make to the communities in which we live and work.’’
A team effort and atmosphere prevailed with the iThemba children very much involved in their new garden. Vegetables planted in six large beds included; tomatoes, lettuce, green peppers, onions, carrots, broccoli, cabbages and beetroots. Mango, avocado and litchi trees were planted near the vegetable garden and three banana trees at the school. Pizzas and cold drinks were provided to keep energy levels flowing. |
| iThemba children enjoying a well earned break of pizza and cold drinks, from left Perseverance, Pinky, Nandi and Princess. |  |
“We are very excited and grateful for this wonderful new garden – it is a living symbol of hope. We have wanted to do this for a long time,” explained Nadine Wright, iThemba Donor Relations Manager. “It was inspiring to see the commitment of the Aurecon staff from their Pinetown and Pietermartizburg offices. This engineering firm has instilled a wonderful internal ethos of community involvement amongst its staff through the ‘Aurecon Cares’ initiative.”
Aurecon kindly donated R2000 towards the non-profit organisation – the funds were raised through an abseiling fundraising event. In addition soccer balls were donated to the children.
“We hope to invite the volunteers back to our campus in a couple of month’s time to see the fruits of their labour,” concluded Nadine.