Zita Petersen’s son used to bring so many children home from school for meals that she decided to open a feeding scheme.
“There were so many children and then we saw there were people in the streets too, so we thought we would give them something to eat twice a week.”
Nearly 10 years later, the feeding scheme has grown into a non-profit which operates in Eastridge, Tafelsig and Khayelitsha. Skye’s Wooden Spoon was registered in 2020 and now runs a crèche, an aftercare, feeding scheme and, most recently, volunteer upskilling programme.
The volunteer upskilling programme came about due to funding challenges.
“We give them a small allowance and training, like fire safety, and first-aid training,” Zita said, explaining that the courses are done via accredited institutions.
Skye’s Wooden Spoon was born in 2016, when Zita’s then seven-year-old son Skyler would bring more and more children home with him and ask his mother to feed them, Zita said.
“It was on a daily basis,” she said.
Zita decided to create a feeding scheme that would run twice a week, but it wasn’t long before people started coming to the scheme looking for help with other issues too, such as child care.
“People came to us with their social issues and we saw that the children didn’t have a place to go to,” Zita said.
The scheme expanded to include afterschool and holiday programmes which were run from the Town Centre Library.
“The children came in hordes, especially for the holiday programmes,” Zita said.
The programmes were run in partnership with organisations such as Bingo, Nali Bali and Read to Rise and “every day we would serve the children a meal”, Zita said.
A few years later the family moved to Tafelsig and expanded the NPO’s footprint to that suburb too.
Programme expands
Zita secured a 12m-long yellow container from which they ran the feeding scheme three days a week. History repeated itself though and when Zita once again noticed the need for a creche, she bought three wendy houses to expand the programme further.
Now Skye’s Wooden Spoon runs a crèche, feeding scheme and afterschool and holiday programmes in the neighbouring Vosho informal settlement in Khayelitsha, but the crèche needs staff, which the NPO cannot afford since it is funded mostly out of pocket and through donations.
“Our mission is to provide quality education and nutritious meals,” Zita said, adding that most of the children cannot afford to pay fees. “In order for all of these programmes to run, we need volunteers.”
The organisation can only afford to pay the volunteers a small stipend and to compensate for this, they have started a training programme.
“So that they can build up a little CV. We try to build up their skills; the youth and the unemployed,” Zita explained.
The humble organisation has grown beyond what Zita and her family, who also work in the NPO, ever expected, and it hasn’t been without its challenges, Zita says, but is her son satisfied with how many people they are currently feeding? Not really, since the vegetable garden he started to sustain the feeding schemes is not thriving at the moment, Zita says, but she adds that this will hopefully change once a pending visit from the Department of Agriculture is completed.
