Vegetable gardens for Alex schools
ALEXANDRA - The Hilton Hotel in Sandton has further cemented its existing relationship with two schools in Alexandra by forgoing its business activities in favour community service.
The Hilton Hotel in Sandton has further cemented its existing relationship with two schools in Alexandra by forgoing its business activities in favour community service.
Staff members gave of their time to participate in Mandela Day activities such as cleaning up the streets of Alexandra and planting trees, as well as starting vegetable gardens at two of the hotels’ adopted schools, Minerva High School and Carter Primary School.
At Minerva, team members, in partnership with Food and Trees for Africa, started a vegetable garden which will complement the school’s feeding scheme.
The hotel from now onwards will provide a soup kitchen facility at both schools; as well as educational activities around youth development and careers advice.
Hilton Worldwide’s Cindy Thomas, who is regional HR director for Africa and the Indian ocean, said the hotel hopes to start various internship, learnership and apprenticeship schemes for pupils from Minerva as part of the hotel’s skills development programme meant to strengthen its relationship with the school.
“We recently took 300 children from both Minerva and Carter to our annual careers expo where we exposed the children to the various career opportunities available in the hospitality industry. We also partnered with Food and Trees for Africa in order to try and fortify the food security programme of the two schools by starting vegetable gardens that will provide fresh vegetables for the schools’ feeding schemes,” Thomas said.
Busi Wawa of Food and Trees for Africa said they also planted trees and vegetables at MC Weiler primary School to mark their Mandela Day celebrations. She said Food and Trees for Africa would constantly monitor the development of the trees and vegetable gardens to ensure they were sustainable.
