The Cape Town Motorcycle Club made a generous donation recently to an organisation with a national footprint, that supports child amputees. A total of R22 000 was donated to Jumping Kids on 11 March by the club.
One of the motorcycle club’s members, Izak ‘Sakkie’ Rust, who is currently taking part in this year’s Absa Cape Epic, is an amputee himself. He is racing in the Cape Epic to raise funds for Jumping Kids and two other organisations: Rejuvenate SA in Hilton, Gauteng and Zimele in Pinelands, Cape Town. Rust, who joined the motorcycle club in March 2020, are one of six amputees taking part in the cycle challenge – three teams of two athletes.
The funds raised are part of Össur South Africa’s ‘What’s Your Epic?’ campaign. Össur is a global leader in non-invasive orthopaedics; innovating, producing, and providing advanced technological solutions within within the prosthetics, bracing and support market.
Maria Oosthuizen, a spokesperson, said the Cape Town Motorcycle Club committed to matching a R1 for R1 donation. This means that for every R1 donated by one of its members, the club would match it with a R1 donation of its own. The total amount raised (50% by members and 50% from The Cape Town Motorcycle Club) amounted to R24,400.
Bobby McGee, chairman of the Cape Town Motorcycle Club, said their club was grateful to be able to donate to Jumping Kids.
“As a club, we are actively involved with various charity fundraising endeavours, especially on the platteland in the Swellendam and Swartland regions. We have identified a need there as the support base is way smaller than that in the city where many corporates get involved with charities and provide much needed support.
“Sakkie approached our club, as he has been a member since March 2020, with the hope of raising funds for one of his charities, in conjunction with him participating in the Cape Epic for the first time as a rider with a disability. Our club members took up the challenge, and the club matched the monies raised like for like,” said McGee.
McGee said Sakkie is an inspiration to all of us.
The donation was also welcomed by Jumping Kids, an organisation established in 2009 with the vision of providing the latest prosthetic limb technology to child amputees in South Africa and Africa.
The organisation works nationally and has kids from every province. Their head office is in Pretoria but they work all around the country, says spokesperson Liezel van Rensburg.
Jumping Kids provides children living with limb related mobility challenges with access to the tools required to become contributing members of society. These ‘tools’ also form the pillars of our Jumping Kids philosophy – access to mobility equipment should translate into access to quality education and sports participation. It is a holistic approach to help integrate children living with limb related challenges into their communities, said Van Rensburg.
Prospective candidates go through an application and assessment process. Once the children are part of our Jumping Kids initiative, the goal is to assist them with access to prosthetic equipment throughout their formative years, while simultaneously assisting, where possible, with access to quality schools through educational bursaries and providing a platform for inclusion in sport, she added.
“It is great to be involved with the ‘What’s Your Epic’ challenge in partnership with Ӧssur South Africa along with Zimele NPC and Rejuvenate SA. The funding will go towards helping the kids in our care to gain access to mobility equipment and, hopefully, inspire them to chase their dreams and think about what their ‘epic’ might be going forward. We are grateful to the Cape Town Motorcycle Club for the support and to Izak for making it possible,” said Michael Stevens, director at Jumping Kids.
Fundraising for the ‘What’s Your Epic?’ campaign is still ongoing.
