In a nutshell
Pantry Partners (307-709) and Food4Good (307-440) are two registered Tulbagh NPO’ s working together to build a permanent community feeding and upliftment hub.
We’ve secured municipal land and are establishing a structured space that provides daily meals, a food garden, life-skills support and a path back into society for vulnerable individuals. The need in Tulbagh is growing — many people have no daily meals, no safe place to sit and eat, and no access to support. We are currently feed people directly from our private vehicles while we prepare the land. To complete the first phase of infrastructure, we are seeking material or financial support from individuals, farmers and businesses who want to invest directly back into the community.
Pantry Partners NPO has now secured an empty piece of land in Tulbagh with the intention of developing a fully operational soup kitchen complemented by community activities and a food producing garden. This initiative aims to create a sustainable, well-managed facility providing nutritious daily meals to the most vulnerable in our community.
Our aim is to help those less fortunate who are hungry, destitute, and living on the streets. The goal is to ensure that food assistance is not simply sporadic, but reliably available every day of the week.
To facilitate our work, Care4Tulbagh conducted research about such work in 18 countries and recommended an organizational structure consisting of two NPO’ s. Two registered NPO’ s have been created to support the project and give the community a sense of structure and, more importantly, HOPE.
Present soup kitchens
Some 20 soup kitchens operate happen-stance and haphazardly in Tulbagh. Most serve food only four days per week, and not over weekends. Almost all are informal a driven by caring locals who provide food whenever they obtain food stock. Apart from two, all are women – the “s“. They are themselves not well-off, but use their own stoves, water, soap, and do not have their own transport. They serve the meals front of their houses in the street, and repeatedly have to ask for support from the community. They do this because they care but they are not equipped to run hygienic kitchens or carry the overhead costs. Despite this, when stock is available, they serve about 13’000 meals per month, but not on weekends.
We wanted to change this. So we invited all the soup kitchens in Tulbagh, the nation Department of Social Development, the Witzenberg Municipality, and the Cape Winelands District Municipality for a session at which it was agreed to establish an NPO to represent the sop-tannies under one umbrella. Fourteen of the sop-tannies (including one man) volunteered to join Food4Good to be able to better serve the community.
Why Two NPO’s?
The project uses two registered NPO’ s because each fulfils a different operational role:
Pantry Partners NPO (307-709)
Handles logistics, banking, administration, compliance, partnerships and overall coordination. This ensures transparent and accountable finances.
Food4Good NPO (307-440)
Runs the active feeding programme, prepares meals, manages the kitchen, oversees community activities and works directly with beneficiaries.
Our moral philosophy
We firmly believe that there is no such thing as a “free lunch,” and for this reason Food4Good includes meaningful upliftment and entrepreneurial development programmes to empower beneficiaries toward self-sufficiency.
Give someone a fish. Tomorrow they want another
Teach someone to fish, and they become self-sufficient
The property
We are pleased to announce that, in partnership with the local municipality, a lease
agreement for the land was formally concluded in November 2025. All development costs, such as water supply, cooking facilities, structures, utilities and security remain the responsibility of our organisations.
We need first to erect fencing, gates and security, then only can we start to prepare the land, put up water containers, plant trees for shade, place containers to cook an prepare food from, put up carports or roofs for shelter, etc.
While development is under way, we will continue to serve meals directly from our private vehicles to the homeless and severely vulnerable individuals in the Tulbagh area.
Any form of assistance, you can provide to Pantry Partners, i.e. excess goods, usable materials, building supplies or financial contributions will help us greatly in securing and developing the premises and expanding our ability to feed those in desperate need.
What is needed…
We are now calling on volunteers and community partners to help us initially to
achieve our goals. The development will take place in several phases and we would
appreciate support in any phase where you are able to contribute.
See the list of all the items we require to run an efficient project of this nature. Initially there are three phases in the implementation plan. Please let us know how you can contribute, whether volunteering, materials and or labour for constructions, food stock donations (both fresh and dry), money donations, or even just moral support.
See the complete list of What is needed…