Gift of the Givers to the rescue amid July’s plummeting temperatures

With July kicking off on an icy cold start, Gift of the Givers is gearing up to provide less fortunate South Africans with basic essentials, blankets and hot meals.

As a cold front currently sweeps through the country, Soweto and Vereeniging among other parts of the country were greeted by below-freezing temperatures early Tuesday morning.

The plummeting temperatures having had dipped to minus one, they are only expected to reach a high of 13°C.

“Kitchen staff at out Bramley district centre will be preparing chicken soup and we’ll be pulling out blankets and things to send out to the community of Soweto and outlying areas. We’re nice and warm in our comfortable houses but we must remember that people don’t have access to heaters to keep themselves warm,” said Roslyn Toontas of the organization.

As another cold front finds a home in the Western Cape, low temperatures and more rainfall are expected in Cape Town.

The cold front, according to the city’s officials, will on Tuesday afternoon sweep through to the south-western Cape with the South African Weather Service also warning that strong gale force winds will be felt along the coast on Tuesday.

“South-westerly swell also increasing to 5.5m along the same stretch of coastline. Vessels will have difficulty navigating, risk of capsizing, beachfront activities such as swimming and angling are not advised,” said City of Cape Town’s Charlotte Powell.

“After today we’ll have another cold front again but that cold front will be limited to the southwest coast, including the south coast, otherwise over the country we’re going to see an improvement around Thursday and Friday,” said Puseleso Mofokeng, a forecaster.