T0 raise funds for Spay It Forward, an initiative established to sterilise stray animals in Kouga, the founders of the non-profit organisation have linked-up with a St Francis Bay-based online store, The Green Box, to collect and sell quality second-hand books to people in the community.
After working in South Sudan for six years, Catherine Falconer returned home to St Francis Bay in 2017.
During her time in the North African country, she and her team made standardised shopping lists of what was available at the Kenyan border markets.
After selecting the food needed on the shopping list, a group of people from Falconer’s team would then travel with a truck to collect the items every two weeks.
Soon after returning home, she used what she had learnt in South Sudan to establish a WhatsApp group with her community to share the idea she had of emailing a shopping list of fresh local produce to people who were interested.
Four years later Falconer has created a well-established website, named ‘The Green Box,’ where people order fresh food items directly from farmers in St Francis Bay by downloading the ‘Lekka App’ which was developed by local app developer Paul Robson and available on ‘The Green Box’ website.
The produce is then packaged in a wooden box hand made by a local family owned business, Duck Duck Bill.
“The community loved the idea of being able to order fresh food items each week from an emailed shopping list,” said Falconer.
“Many people wanted to buy organic produce to support local farmers and reduce plastic packing which would help the community work towards a greener environment.”
At the start of the COVID-19 lockdown, the co-founder of the Spay If Forward initiative, Paulene Hardy, together with four other women in the community, Carmen Stevens, Colleen Sherren, Barbara Barnard and Avril Tonks, linked-up with Falconer to establish an online bookstore on The Green Box website, for avid readers who could not visit bookstores due to the lockdown restrictions.
Since creating the online book store, the five women have remained dedicated to sourcing second-hand books each week for the website and in October they were able to raise more than R1 000 from the online book sales which they then donated to SPCA Humansdorp to help sterilise stray animals in the community.
“You can order all your vegetables and other items on the website and then add a book of your choice for R30. All sales of these books, together with contributions, go towards Spay it Forward,” said Falconer.
Before dedicating her time to sourcing books for The Green Box website, Hardy, together with her friend, Steven, founded Spay It Forward to assist in the sterilisation of dogs and cats in Kouga.
“There have been 240 sterlisations funded thus far, all done through the vet at the SPCA in Humansdorp,” said Hardy.
“We are very grateful for the people who donate such lovely books which enable us to sell to raise funds for Spay It Forward and help sterilise many stray animals in the area.”
