Many miles means millions of meals

MOTORING NEWS - What started as an objective to deliver 200 000 meals to impoverished South African communities during national lockdown in 2020, has become one of the Kingsley Holgate Foundation's biggest ever humanitarian successes with the total tally now reaching more than two million meals over the past two years.

Holgate says when they set off almost two years ago on their Mzansi Edge expedition - an eight-day, 16 000km journey to track the land borders of South Africa - their target was 200 000 meal deliveries to families in rural areas bordering game reserves suffering losses due to the pandemic.

"By the end of the expedition in December 2020, we had delivered 250 000 nutritious porridge parcels.

"Naturally, as explorers who use adventure to save and improve lives, our expedition team raised the bar to 500 000 meals, then one million and so on.

"By April last year we had delivered 1,2 million meals and shortly after the start of our latest Defender Transcontinental expedition on 27 October at Cape Agulhas, we reached the two million mark."

Gruelling but rewarding
Holgate's year-long Defender Transcontinental expedition is one of his most challenging journeys to date. The expedition involves a 30 000km journey through 30 countries from the southern tip of Africa to the most northern point of Europe, and then on to the birthplace of Land Rover at the Isle of Anglesey in Wales.

The team reached Entebbe in Uganda early in April before heading off to South Sudan, the Sudan and Egypt.

It is the first real-life expedition test for Land Rover's new Defenders outside of SA's borders, across two continents and over some of the most extreme terrain on earth, undertaken by a team that has already completed 39 expeditions to every country on the African continent and beyond.

Humanitarian objectives for the expedition include eye tests and reading glasses, the distribution of insecticide-treated mosquito nets, the delivery of two million meals to crèches, educational conservation work near elephant and rhino populations, and the supply of water to communities with water shortages.

The team set off from Cape Agulhas on 27 October last year. Photos: Kingsley Holgate Foundation