Life Lines Day: Passion for Supporting Children at Cape

Twice a year, today is again Life Lines Day at currywines.

This is about our second passion beyond wine, the underprivileged children at the Cape.

Our Association Life Lines e.V.

For those of you who haven't followed us for long, let me quickly say that in 2005 we founded the charitable Life Lines e.V. association along with friends. We support projects for underprivileged children in the area around Somerset West, where we spend about five months a year.

Coming Together to Make a Difference in South Africa

If you're wondering what this has to do with a shop where you're actually just buying wine: Everything we discuss here has been funded almost entirely by our customers. The interest in South Africa goes far beyond wine enjoyment for many of our customers, and we are fortunate to combine our passion with their interest and willingness to help, thereby providing much-needed support to children at the Cape. This is why we report twice a year, to thank all participants and showcase what we can achieve together.

Since around 2017, we have primarily focused on three projects.

The Muffin Project

In the bakery we run at a primary school in Strand with two bakers, we produce about 9,000 muffins per school week, enriched with a vitamin complex and Moringa, which are distributed to undernourished children mainly in kindergartens, primary schools, and among our Fast 11. Since 2005, we have distributed about 3.5 million of these little power-packed muffins, supporting the physical and mental development of the children. Currently, a muffin costs around 35 cents, so with just €6 a month, you can provide a schoolchild with a nutritious snack daily.

The Fast 11

They are the Life Lines Football and Netball Team in the Lwandle Township. Themba, our coach, works full-time in the housekeeping of a local hospital and dedicates the rest of his free time to his boys and girls. With a small team of volunteer coaches, he brings together about 150 children and adolescents over the age of ten daily. While keeping these kids off the bleak and dangerous streets of the Township, he also imparts values like punctuality, reliability, honesty, openness, teamwork, ambition, and determination, which is quite the exception in this environment. We support the team with training equipment, jerseys, shoes, and ongoing funding for travel costs to tournaments and away games. Our biggest dream for the Fast 11 remains a proper sports field that would also enable physical education for the 1,200 children of the primary school, as they don’t have any such facility.

The Eagles’ Nest

Our largest and most sustainable infrastructure project located in the agricultural community of Grabouw. In 2020, we opened our first self-built kindergarten here, which has remarkably taken care of 93 children aged three to six. In the afternoons, 50 schoolchildren come in, as well as a senior group that we founded in 2022. During winter months, we also finance a soup kitchen for 400 people six days a week. The Eagles Nest is run by our friends Maria and Selwyn, with their charity "Eagle's Nest Learning Foundation."

The district has already sent us a thank-you letter offering the significantly larger neighboring plot for a possible expansion. This motivation comes from knowing how many children we can provide a better start in life for over many years, and how this will transform the entire community. Last year, many of you found our associated brochure in your wine packages.

And since April, we have been realizing the first construction phase of the new Eagle's Nest Community Center. A detailed description of this project goes beyond the scope of this article, but if you wish to know more, feel free to call us, visit our website at lebenslinien-ev.de, or take nine minutes to watch the newly completed film linked below. We welcome anyone visiting the Cape region to come and see us. Just drop us a line and we will arrange a meeting. We look forward to either seeing you again or to meeting you personally.