Cape Town - While many spent this past Christmas weekend celebrating with their families and loved ones, the holiday would have been a lonely one for residents at the Elim Night Shelter if not for a special luxury treat courtesy of the team at Sun International’s GrandWest Casino and Entertainment World.
On Friday, the GrandWest Corporate Social Investment (CSI) team gathered at the shelter for the homeless and destitute to set up a buffet station and give its residents a special Christmas lunch along with toiletry packs.
GrandWest general manager Mervyn Naidoo said: “Seven years ago we were invited to come through for a site visit at the shelter and we got to chat to some of the residents.
“The shelter manager told me they usually looked for sponsors for their Christmas meals, which was when I proposed that we come through and cater a fully sampled menu for Christmas lunch. We have been here on Christmas ever since with the trifle, steak, chicken, turkey and salads.”
Naidoo said the meal they served was the same high-quality meals they served on Christmas Day to paying customers at GrandWest Casino to help spread the spirit of Christmas.
Elim Night Shelter manager Shafeek Ortell said this time of the year was the loneliest for many and despite encouragement to spend Christmas with family or friends, most residents spent Christmas at the shelter this year.
“One of the young men here told me something that absolutely broke my heart. He said his mother did not want him home for Christmas this year and, yes, most people here have made mistakes and we do not excuse that, but they are treated like family here and are afforded a second chance,” Ortell said.
Dishing generous amounts to the residents was Ruth Hess, a Swiss tourist who checked into GrandWest’s sister property the five-star Table Bay hotel a year ago and never left. Hess loved Cape Town and its people and so in November 2021 she made the decision to live in the hotel permanently and continued to spend a fair amount of time working for charitable causes with the GrandWest CSI department.
“I love the people here, they are open and friendly and truly made Cape Town feel like my home. I like to do good things, even at home in Switzerland, and am so happy my friends at GrandWest told me about this initiative to help the homeless at the Elim Night Shelter today,” Hess said.
Hess said Christmas was a time for giving and encouraged all tourists to get involved in helping all those who made Cape Town the special city it was, its people from all walks of life.
kristin.engel@in.co.za