Support rolls in for college staff
CLOSE to 60 support staff and their children evacuated from Woodridge College due to the weekend fires, spent Saturday night in the St George’s Prep school hall as the people of Port Elizabeth showered them with food, clothing and other necessities.
Woodridge functions and catering manager Nicolette Olivier thanked St George’s and the Nelson Mandela Bay community for their donations.
“Within 15 minutes of me putting out the call to St George’s that we need help for our staff, when we arrived here the hall was literally full of mattresses already and people just bringing in donations of food and toiletries and everything,” Olivier said yesterday.
“It was amazing, I have no words actually!”
The donations included a tiny crib which was immediately put to use keeping a baby aged only five months old snug after her family was among those forced to flee the fire.
There were more than a dozen children in the group evacuated but by midday yesterday, most families had arrived at the Thornhill Community Centre, closer to their homes at Woodridge.
Olivier said the team at disaster management had that it was not yet safe to go back on the property yesterday morning.
“Most of the staff houses are fine but there is no electricity and no water,” he said.
Although only one home appeared to have been destroyed overnight on Saturday, by yesterday afternoon the fire had flared up and there were fears more staff may have lost their homes.
Elzabe Boshoff, from St George’s College which is assisting St George’s Preparatory School with the logistics, said many of the service staff sleeping over in Port Elizabeth had been fighting the fires since early on Saturday.
“We are trying to get the Woodridge service families back to the [Thornhill] community centre so we are packing food packs to get everybody sorted,” she said.
Donations were still being delivered yesterday at the school in Park Drive, which will continue this week to assist the affected Woodridge community.
Boshoff and Olivier said the outpouring of aid had been phenomenal, with restaurants and supermarket chains offering to supply food and other necessities.
However, Olivier said, until they could get back on the property they could not assess what was needed.
The school was grateful for all the goodwill and assistance shown, she said.