Reaching Out To Our Vic Falls Community During COVID-19

Even though you couldn’t be with us in person, so many of you, our guests and partners, have been making a huge difference in our local community of Woodlands, Zimbabwe. With your support, our More Community Foundation, together with our Stanley & Livingstone Boutique Hotel, has been able to come to the aid of people hit hardest by the COVID-19 crisis.

Needless to say, the situation in the community is dire. Months of lockdown have meant that many single-headed families have lost their jobs and only sources of income, while the travel ban has also led to the loss of contributions they receive from local hospitality businesses. There are so many mouths to feed and we have an urgent responsibility to help in any ways we can.   

Thanks to your generous donations, we have been able to put together food parcels in partnership with Pick n Pay, Victoria Falls to help feed families across the four rural villages that make up Woodlands. With a great distance between the villages and Victoria Falls, and fuel in scarce supply, Pick n Pay has stepped in again to deliver the parcels directly to the community.

Arriving at the villages’ most central meeting point, Masuwe Primary School, the food parcels often come just in time. One of the residents cried for joy on receiving hers. She and her four children had finished their last soy mince soup the day before and had not known where their next meal would be coming from. Theirs is just one of thousands of people’s stories.

Each parcel contains enough mealie meal, sugar beans, salt, cooking oil, sugar, as well as soap to last a family for a month. Those receiving them are extremely grateful as this comes at a time when the price of mealie meal in the country has increased by 200% and many people in Vitoria Falls are now reliant on feeding programmes started by hotels, volunteers and NGOs. 

We’d like to thank each and every person who has contributed to our food parcel drives. Your generosity has touched so many lives and we hope that you share in the joy of the immense difference you have made! Should you still wish to make a donation, please click here – we are doing one last parcel drop for the year to ensure no one goes hungry this festive season.

Words by: Jade Crocket

Photos by: More Community Foundation