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24 November 2022
Shoprite donated 500 indigenous and fruit trees to households in Botshabelo, Free State, to further expand its support in this community.
The trees will be planted at 250 households around the Ntataise Creche Garden which has been supported by Shoprite since 2019.
This forms part of the Trees and Gardens for Home project which provides community members, in the vicinity of Shoprite-supported gardens, with trees. They also receive the necessary training and tools required to grow their own garden at home. The project aims to support food security, green the environment, develop skills in the community and mitigate climate change.
“A lot of community members want to learn about and start gardening and now we’re able to because of Shoprite’s support – we're very grateful.”
- Nthabiseng Pooniane, one of the community members who received trees to plant at her home
Mookho Letshokgohl from Food & Trees for Africa with Mpolai Seseane and Momosa Mokone from Botshabelo Community gardening.
“We are committed to building the resilience of the communities in which we operate, especially at household level, and we know that food gardens provide communities with some resilience against a changing climate.”
- Sanjeev Raghubir, Sustainability Manager at the Shoprite Group
Hunger relief and food security are at the core of the Group’s corporate social investment programmes. The retailer has been partnering with food gardens since 2015 and currently supports more than 180 community food gardens and over 3 500 home gardens, which impacts almost 53 000 beneficiaries. In the past year, more than 2 700 community members were trained in sustainable food gardening, assisting them to grow nutritious and organic food. The gardens collectively produced a harvest of more than 31 500kg, providing almost 100 000 meals.