Schools help keep hope alive for struggling child care centre

Various schools in the Buffalo City Metro have come together to raise funds to save the Guardians of Hope Child Care Centre, which is in dire financial distress. So far, 20 schools have joined Guardians of Hope’s R5 School Challenge, which will run for the 2026 school year. Each participating school chooses a specific month to collect R5 per pupil.

Founder Elaine Brenkman said R54,437 had been received from 106 single donations so far. “There have also been EFT donations and sign-ups that will cover the next two months, so I can confirm that we are safe until the end of May,” Brenkman said. Centre manager Gazzelle Ihlenfeldt said the threat of closure had not yet been lifted.

“We still haven’t secured sustainable funding through our R150 debit order,” she said. The centre launched a R150 debit order campaign in a bid to cover its monthly running costs. “At the moment we only have 210, and 20 schools that have joined the campaign.” She said it would become clearer later this month whether the centre could continue operating at full capacity. “We’ll know in the middle of March when we send out the next payments, and maybe then we can do another update of where we are,” she said.