Front: Special guest Sipha Gumbi, a member of the National Wheelchair Basketball team.
The top performers in the Casual Day campaign for 2015 were announced to the project’s awards breakfast at the Elangeni Hotel in Durban on Tuesday 9 February.
Top of the leader board was the Quadpara Association of South Africa with R306 428, followed by the KZN Association for Persons with Disabilities (APD) with R293 332 and the KZN Blind & Deaf Society with R109 650.
The function was organised by a team from KZN APD whose director, Cheryl Naidoo, thanked all the attendees for their contribution towards the project.
The generous public added R27 million to the donations raised by Casual Day over the past two decades, bringing the national total for 21 years to R249 million.
Sponsored by the Edcon Group and supported by a number of corporates, Casual Day is the flagship project of the National Council for Persons with Physical Disabilities in SA (NCPPDSA). Says project leader Vanessa du Plessis: ‘We would like to thank all Durban employers who permit their employees to take part in Casual Day. A large portion of what we raise comes from employees in South Africa’s companies and big corporates. It is very interesting to note that employees who participate in projects like Casual Day are more positive, motivated and productive at work. Doing good as a team gives employees a feeling of pride and meaning.
‘Doing good together leads to more satisfied employees and ones that are more likely to exceed their performance expectations than those who are not involved. The bottom line is – doing good is good for the bottom line.’
Casual Day Project Team chairman Lusani Netshitomboni encouraged the fundraisers in the room to think of innovative ways of raising funds within a constrained economy.
Mercia Maserumule, head of enterprise development at the Edcon Group said the company has committed over R12 million to Casual Day since becoming a principal sponsor in 2013, with over R4,3 million of the funds raised as sticker donations at Edcon stores.
The group continues to support the agenda of the South African community of persons with disabilities with the National Council for Persons with Physical Disabilities in SA and its affiliates across the country. Edcon’s relationship with the NCPPDSA extends beyond the Casual Day sponsorship to the recruitment and placement of persons with disabilities in jobs within the Edcon Group, she said.
The donations will be distributed to the following beneficiaries: the National Council for Persons with Physical Disabilities in SA, South African National Council for the Blind, SA Federation for Mental Health, Deaf Federation of South Africa, Autism South Africa, Down Syndrome South Africa, the National Association for Persons with Cerebral Palsy, the South African National Deaf Association, the National Institute for the Deaf, QuadPara Association of South Africa, Alzheimer’s South Africa and the South African Disability Alliance.
