This year’s World Food Day, themed “Right to foods for a better life and a better future,” saw head office members from Libstar, a leading producer and distributor of consumer packaged goods, collaborate with The Sprightly Seed to enhance food security in the Ravensmead community.
The Libstar central team visited the Ravensmead Educare Centre to help build and seed ten raised vegetable beds together with the centre’s children. These vegetable beds, once producing, will go on to benefit the centre, as well as the surrounding community with about 85 kg of fresh produce per planting season – enough to nutritionally boost over 4 000 meals.
“The new vegetable garden will not only give the children great nutrition, but will also benefit our community as the harvested vegetables will be used for soup from time to time, especially during the Cape’s long winter months. It’s a wonderful opportunity for the children, many of whom live in spaces where there is no garden or greenery. They are excited to help tend to the beds, see them flourish and get involved in the garden. I hope it instils a love of gardening in them.”
Sarah Strauss, principal of the Ravensmead Educare Centre and local community hero.
The centre is part of the GROW Early Learning programme, an NGO established to improve early childhood development (ECD) centres in under-privileged areas.
Supporting the nutritional needs of children attending under-privileged schools
The Sprightly Seed is a non-profit company focusing on enhancing food security within the South African school context, in resource-poor communities.
- The social enterprise establishes sustainable food gardens, supports local feeding schemes and empowers communities in regenerative agriculture skills.
- Jade Orgill, dedicated human development specialist and founding director of The Sprightly Seed believes that meeting children’s nutritional needs is vital for their overall development and aims to create self-sufficient projects that foster independence and resilience.
- By collaborating with local organisations, she strives to turn schools into thriving, environmental stewards that benefit both students and the broader community.
“We applaud corporate citizens like Libstar who keep good food at the forefront. Helping to plant seedlings at the Ravensmead Educare food garden means securing nutrition for enrolled children not just for today, but for the next few months. Our ‘Farm to Table Schools’ programme places child nutrition and wellbeing in a way that builds more resilient educare centres and communities and we greatly appreciate the support received from Libstar.”
Jade Orgill – Sprightly Seed
Terri Ladbrooke, CFO at Libstar:
“A key priority of our CSI strategy is to support projects that are directed towards food sustainability, food security and healthy nutrition – and this initiative does exactly that. We really enjoyed our time at the Ravensmead Educare Centre and look forward to them nurturing their new vegetable garden – which in return will nurture them, beyond just one day,”.