Sandton is your place to shine
I was having a normal life. I went to school, went to varsity and started my career. For many years I was little more than a minor cog in a major capitalist wheel. And, I was good at it – especially on the consumer front. My best-paying job – as far as qualifications rewarded by income is concerned– was a summer holiday back in Pittsburgh, when I was around 15. Besides trying to learn Italian from my grandmother, I was also in charge of my Uncle Tony’s garden for around $10 an hour, back when the American minimum wage was probably around $2 an hour (proving, yet again, it’s who you know, not what you know).
My summer goal? A pair of Timberland deck shoes that, from what I remember, cost $115, sales tax excluded. It was the early 1980s – Timberland was an ‘insider’ stealth brand with relatively few outlets. The shoes took weeks to track down, to my uncle’s dismay (as, while I was the gardener, he was the driver).
At summer’s end, with days to go before returning home to Baltimore, we finally found them in a dodgy side street army-navy store downtown. Of course, being a teen, I had other things to buy throughout the summer, so I was short around $50 when we got to the sales counter which, nearly 30 years later, my uncle still laughs about at every family reunion. Looking back, I’m amazed that I would dedicate an entire summer to a brand, and not learn Italian from my gran. Oh, to do it over again! I’d rather walk barefoot and be fluent in Italian... Completely wrong priorities but, hey, give me a break, I was 15! Life’s like that: always crystal-clear in the rearview mirror.
Fortunately, I’ve evolved. And I certainly won’t regret my 30s, as that’s when I discovered Starfish, the charity dedicated to helping children made vulnerable by HIV and Aids. I developed a yearning to give back, but was too busy (inner voice: he’s lying – he’s too lazy) until some friends and I decided to charge each other for the priviledge of seeing one another for after-work drinks, with the money going to charity. We called ourselves The Thursday Club. Six of us invited our mates and 47 people rocked up at a lounge. Bingo: R4 700 for Starfish, and all we had to do was drink, smoke and talk (which we’d be doing anyway)! Over time, it spread to the East Rand (Benoni Vista Social Club) and to Cape Town (The Thursday Club Cape Town), when one of our co-founders, Josephine Swainbank, moved down. Ultimately, I took a bit of a fundraising sabbatical before co-founding the Veuve Clicqout MediaSalon with some mates a few years back. The four groups have become known to the Starfish crowd as its ‘charity drinks network’. And, by meeting for monthly after-work drinks over the past few years, we’ve collectively raised more than R1-million for Starfish (to put it into perspective, it costs a mere R300 or so a month to provide a child with basic care).
Fortunately, we’re not alone. There are millions of passionate South Africans who support tens of thousands of NGOs operating in our country – our civic society’s backbone. You’ll be meeting a few of them in this issue, and many more issues to come. After all, Sandton is the place to shine. Enjoy – and be sure to tell us about it too!
Regrets, regrets & more regrets at possibly every major period in our lives - i could have taken more advantage of the French/German/Latin curricula at junior school in Cape Town back in the 80''''s ,maybe i should have yielded more to the small towm Umtata society expectation of a girl from my background and my personnal conviction until 6 months ago - I should have just done that Arts degree that was a slap in the face to my 2nd generation black professional parents!!! I sat in my 2 bedroom sunny Sandton apartment recently and realised that everything, every excessive drinking-middle-of-exams night was meant to lead me to this sociey of consciously social and socially responsible citizens who live in Sandton. Oh, i''''m not delusional nor blind to the reality that is SA life at the moment but i''''ve also learnt that as human beings we choose the "real"experiences we want 2 have in every lifetime &to everyone in Sandton - press on, on your quest for truth & reality because you can be as valuable to the rest of society only when you''''ve taken care of your yourself. I am a proud Sandton dweller because everday I see a people who embrace all of Africa''''s challenges with a can-change attitude (I promise you, you can never imagine what happened 2 my black self when i saw a black maid driving a C-Class at Benmore Gardens, the sense of self worth & control she exhibited had me floored for a few minutes. All i''''m saying is I have been in Sandton (Jhb actually) for 6 years now & i am proud of the people that I bump into, share restuarant space, grocery space & livelihood with because I see authenticity & a self committed resolution in each and everyone of my fellow Sandtonians to do what we can to make this place a humane one for all of us. Proudly Sandtonian, Nomha!
