GWM donates over R100 000 in personalised goodie bags to vulnerable children

GWM South Africa has given the less fortunate a reason to smile this festive season.

The company on Tuesday donated gifts and goodie bags worth over R100 000 to The Cradle of Hope, a not-for-profit organisation in Johannesburg that cares for vulnerable women and children.

The donation, which GWM dubs “Smile in a Bag” consisted of goodie bags for 220 children at Cradle of Hope. Each bag is filled with gifts, snacks and sweets, personal hygiene products such as toothpaste, toothbrush and a washing cloth, sneakers, shirts, water bottle and other personalised items.

The bags were dropped off by a fleet of Haval SUVs that shipped the gifts from the GWM South Africa head office in Midrand to the main home of the Cradle of Hope in Krugersdorp.

“At GWM South Africa, we have the mantra ‘Go with More’, which challenges us to always deliver more than expected,” says Bianca van Staden, Head of Marketing, Brand and Public Relations at GWM South Africa.

“In this case, it meant that we not only stuffed each bag with more goodies and clothes than what was expected, but we personalised every bag. That means children at the Cradle of Hope received their own gift, made especially for them with love by the team at GWM South Africa.

According to Van Staden, the donation is the latest in a series of activities that involved staff and dealers of GWM South Africa and that focusses specifically on the upliftment of local communities.

“GWM South Africa has been part of the social fabric of South Africa for the last 16 years and we want to be a good corporate citizen and show our care and love for our fellow countrymen,” says van Staden.

Van Staden and her colleagues picked the Cradle of Hope for their Festive Season donation after reading about the organisation’s extraordinary history and work in caring for vulnerable, destitute and abused women and their children and for teenage girls.

The organisation started in 2017 and has since expanded to add a feeding scheme, a pre-primary school, and several other upliftment projects in the Mogale City metropole. While it cares for an ever-increasing number of mothers and their children and other destitute people from the area, it maintains a focus on helping the people in their care to grow, heal and eventually care for themselves and others.

“It is gifts like the one from GWM South Africa that makes the hard work at The Cradle of Hope worthwhile. While every donation is welcome, it is not often that a company will go to all the trouble to pick and pack a special gift for every member of our home, by name. Their donation perfectly reflects our slogan that implores people to ‘Be the Change’ ” says Cat Craig, the Marketing Facilitator and Gender Based Violence Campaigner at The Cradle of Hope.

To add your support to the good work of the Cradle of Hope, visit www.cradleofhope.org.