for needy children
A1GP World Cup of Motorsport raced into the streets of Durban, bringing the seventh leg of the current season to the city for the third year. This time around, the event was one with a difference, when patrons of the highly exclusive premium hospitality, Pangaea, became the first ever patrons in the history of A1GP to raise funds for a charity, while attending a race.
Food 4 Africa is the organisation that became the beneficiary from the proceeds of the A1GP auction. Food 4 Africa’s mission is to work with other organisations to supply children with at least one vitamin and mineral enriched meal every day. Their target market includes pre-school children; feeding the destitute; AIDS orphans, street kids and neglected children as well as senior citizens.
They feed in excess of 17,000 children everyday, throughout Eastern Cape, Northern KZN as well as Daveyton, Gauteng.
The auction took place in Pangaea on the Sunday of the Durban race weekend, between the Sprint and Feature races. The items on auction were beaded wire cars, specially made for A1GP by Food 4 Africa sister company, Tangerine Marketing. The cars were replicas of the real-life A1GP cars and represented the following nations: Great Britain, China, Ireland, Netherlands, India, Brazil, New Zealand, France, Germany and South Africa. The cars were made of wire as well as 12,000 – 18,000 beads per car while the wheels were made of black refuse bags. It took 10 people a whole day to make a single car. The highest bid for a car was R300,000 which was made by SABC CEO Dali Mpofu, for the A1 Team South Africa car. An impressive total of R1,115,000 was raised for Food 4 Africa.
Gordon Minott, Founder and Managing Director, Food 4 Africa said: ‘We are very grateful to A1GP for appointing us as the charity that would benefit from the funds raised during the Durban charity auction. The funds will be used to purchase food which will be distributed through our rural school child development program over the next year. The funds converted to food translate to 2.2 million meals. This allows us to feed an additional 6,100 children per day. We would also like to say thank you to the successful bidders. As our patron John Paul DeJoria continually points out ‘Success unshared is failure’ and Food 4 Africa SA and UK are grateful to the bidders who shared their success.’
Pete da Silva, CEO A1GP said: ‘This auction was a first for A1GP and we are happy to have raised a large sum of money for an organisation as deserving as Food 4 Africa. The generosity of the patrons in Pangaea was overwhelming and we thank each person who participated. As A1GP, we are proud to have held this auction and we commend Food 4 Africa for the work that it does and we hope that the money raised will go towards helping the organisation reach new heights by feeding more needy children.’
The auction was preceded by a visit to Mt Moriah, one of the care centres that Food 4 Africa is affiliated with. Drivers from various A1GP teams had the opportunity to interact with children from the care centre by playing soccer with them, painting their jungle gym and playing with the scalextric set donated by A1GP to the centre. The children from Mt Moriah also got an opportunity to visit the Durban track to see the drivers in action as well as visit the pit areas of the various A1GP teams.
Food 4 Africa will use the money to provide needy South African children with the nutrition that they need to grow healthy and strong.
The penultimate round of A1GP World Cup of Motorsport takes place in Shanghai, China on 11–13 April 2008.
