EXTREME athlete Steven Lancaster intends to run for 24 hours and in that time summit Brickmakerskloof in Gqeberha 141 times, adding up to the mighty 8 849m which would put him on top of the highest mountain in the world.
Steven is taking on this mammoth challenge to help Community Conservation Fund Africa (CCFA) raise funds for trees to be planted at schools in KwaNobuhle as part of their Greening the Community Initiative.
CCFA is a non-profit company formed by Gqeberha-based tourism giant Mantis Collection and French multinational Accor Hotels.
CCFA has partnered with Volkswagen SA to focus on the community of KwaNobuhle as part of a “Greening the Community” empowerment pilot project. CCFA plans to plant 600 fruit, spekboom and shade trees at schools in the township over a period of 12 months.
CCFA and Mantis Collection executive chair Adrian Gardiner said the initiative was inspired by work already being done in partnership with KwaNobuhle residents by the Indalo Nursery in Mantis’s Hopewell Estate, on the western outskirts of Gqeberha.
“The strategy is that businesses supporting the Adopt-a-Tree initiative pay R3 000 per tree cluster and CCFA will plant a minimum cluster of 10 trees at registered schools.”
He said the tree-planting Indalo nursery team would liaise with the recipient school and help them to prepare sites for planting as well as maintenance of the trees until they were large enough to sustain themselves.
Participating schools needed to be registered and well fenced, with supportive principals, who were keen to get involved.
“The initiative also has an educational arm as 20 local youngsters from KwaNobuhle will benefit from a 21-day Youth Development Empowerment scheme and selected candidates will be trained by the Indalo Nursery team to work in the nursery.”
Gardiner said he was hoping that Bay businesses would embrace the community conservation vision.
Everesting Challenge
Everesting Challenge co-ordinator Linda Harwood said Lancaster would begin his run at 16:00 today and run through until the same time tomorrow.
Each time he summits, a VW Kombi will transport him down and then he will do it all over again until his Everesting Challenge is complete.
Bridge Street Brewery would be supporting the Everesting Challenge with music, food and drink specials from the start to the end of the Challenge.
- Individual trees sell for R300. To Adopt-a-Tree, visit www.ccfa.africa companies interested in the project are invited to contact Linda Harwood on linda@harwoodevents.co.za or 083 310 0750.
