Have you heard about the #LunchboxChallenge? 

i kept seeing it on the Twitterer and eventually reached out to Veronique to ask her if she would be interested in sharing some of her story for my blog so we can hopefully get more eyes on it. Veronique’s is an inspiring story of someone doing something where they are to make the world around them a little bit better. But i will let her tell you all of that:

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My name is Veronique Herbert, I am a 33yr old mom of 4 and I have a huge passion for helping better the lives of children, single unemployed moms, and the elderly folk who are taking care of their grandkids get a decent meal whenever possible.

For the past year and a half after losing my job due to Covid I decided to do something positive with my free time. While job searching I decided to use some of my savings to start feeding and handing out a daily loaf of bread to those who needed it. I then decided to do more and started a few more drives to try and make things a little easier for those families who could not even afford a basic thing such as bread or electricity. I even added something small but nice for the kids around Easter time to make them feel included.

Almost 2 years in and I’ve had a few very successful projects with the help of donations from many South Africans around the country. A few celebs have also played a major part in every project being a success.

The lastest running project I have now is #LunchboxChallenge. With this 1 I strive to provide as many lunchboxes,a juice/water and a fruit to an underprivileged kid every day they attend school. My third week in and I’ve managed to give over 100 children something decent to take to school as no child should learn or can learn on an empty stomach.

In my community there is a huge need for lots of things, the gangwars are at an all-time high and it blocks parents from going out to look for jobs or simply just going out and trying to provide for their children. There are a few other places (NGO) who provide meals when I am not able to but they are hard to get to when there are shots being fired at any point during the day. The most basic and biggest need would be food and having a meal at the end of each day especially for the kids.

These families live off of social grants which barely covers all of the cost and that’s where I come in to try and ease the everyday stresses these families go through.

To get in touch with me simply follow me:

@VeroniqueHerbe1 on Twitter or contact me directly at vdevries00@gmail.com

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Thank you SO much Veronique, for sharing and for the work you are doing to encourage and inspire and literally feed those around you. i know that Veronique could use help with supplies or donations at the moment and so if anyone reading this wants to get involved or maybe even has a corporate contact who might help then please contact her. And if not, then perhaps you will consider sharing the blog post so that we can get more eyes and more potential hope of help through that.

Would love to be able to share more stories of ordinary people you know who are involved in extraordinary things, so keep them coming… in fact one such story [about Community Gardens] can be heard on one of my recent podcast episodes so take a listen.

Let’s continue to work together to build this country into a much better version of what it might be! 

Lunch for #LunchboxChallenge