Booi had asked the 1 000 members of Southern Cape Correctional Services to show their compassion towards the less fortunate by donating a portion of their salaries. "Our response made Mrs Booi very proud. We raised R80 000 which would help the poorer schools in our area," said Monre Arries, Knysna Prison manager.
He added that the members of the Correctional Services care about their community and would go "the extra mile to help". Knysna executive mayor, Georlene Wolmarans applauded the members. She also told the children that through experience she had realised that the most important thing in life was education. "Once you are educated, nobody can take that education away."
Before handing over the R20 000 cheque, Booi expressed her thanks to the member of the Correctional Services and said that her dream for this initiative would never have been realised without their help.
The value of the cheque had been kept secret and on seeing the amount, the school's headmaster, John Levendal was visibly overcome with emotion. "I have no words. Our thanks go to all the personnel for this wonderful gift, thank you," he said.
"We feel the hand of God on us at this school. When we were told that we could no longer collect children from Smutsville we were not sure what would happen to our school. Would we have enough pupils attending to prevent the school from closing? God said, ‘Don’t worry, God will look after you’, and he did. Today He once again showed us that He is."
Levendal gave his assurance that that any decision about how the money should be spent would be a joint decision in which the parents would also have a say.
Other schools that received assistance from the Back-to-School initiative were Nelsrivier School (De Rust), Ruiterbos School (George), Heidedal Primary School (George) and MM Matheza Primary School (Thembalethu).
As part of Correctional Services Area Commisioner, Ndileka Booi's Back-to-School initiative, Ruigtevlei Primary School received a whopping R20 000.
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