bonhappi-T is TWO! Here's How We Celebrated Our Birthday!

In August, bonhappi-T turned TWO! Instead of celebrating on our own we decided to share the happiness with the people we’re in business for - those you feed for a month when you buy one of our bonhappi-T shirts. Our people-feeding partner, FoodForward SA, supply food to over 600 beneficiary organisations, who feed people every day, thanks to food and monetary donations.

Some of the little people from Little People's Den

One FoodForward SA beneficiary is Little People’s Den Educare Centre in Milnerton. This pre-school serves disadvantaged children from the surrounding areas whose parents cannot afford to pay pre-school fees. The centre aims to provide foundation-phase education to these children, ensuring their early development is not compromised. In addition to this, they provide their learners with adequate nutrition to aid the learning process. Partnering with FoodForward SA has freed up funding for the school to take the children on monthly educational excursions around Cape Town, further enriching their learning experience.

Happy faces on their way to Intake Island

Choosing to spend our 2nd birthday with Little People’s Den was, therefore, a no-brainer. Each child received a party pack filled with sweets and toys and had fun with helium balloons and birthday cup cakes.

Want to share happiness when you #wearhappiness? Buy any tee from bonhappi-T.com and you will feed a hungry person or dog for one month.

#wearhappiness

Corporates & bonhappi-T meeting a Social Challenge

Companies face growing pressure to align commercial interests with social challenges.

One of South Africa's social challenges is the alleviation of hunger and the regular provision of nutritious food to underprivileged people. 14 million South Africans go hungry every day and another 14 million are at hunger risk.

Companies have seen how easy it is to make a social difference. They purchase special individualised corporate bonhappi-t shirts for conference gifts, company functions/events, for their employees to purchase individually etc.

In this way, they enrich both their employees and the communities in which they operate.

Here are a few bonhappi-T partnerships:

South Africa’s professional Rugby players wear special bonhappi-T shirts at corporate events which we print with their own design. So far 168 SA Rugby players and their MyPlayers bonhappi-T shirts have created 5208 days of feeding:

Unilever and FMI gave their Conference delegates, our graphic-design bonhappi-T shirts. We embroidered their logos on the sleeve. Together these employees created 9300 days of feeding: 

Ignition Group collaborate with bonhappi-T by ordering our t-shirts printed with their design. Staff use their salaries to purchase them and wear them to work any day and definitely Fridays! Their employees have created 15500 days of feeding to date:

Our NPO feeding partners are FoodForward SA (feeding hungy people) and the Do More Foundation (feeding homeless and hungry dogs with Bobtail).

Be happy 😄

Instalment 3: Addressing the problem

Instalment 3: Addressing the problem

Making it easy for people to help others and consistently linking the act to something meaningful, sounds hectic but, is very do-able

...and the social impact it can have is mind blowing :) 

SOCIAL IMPACT 1 - connecting

 We let you quickly and easily do good by making it possible for you to feed a hungry person or homeless dog for a whole month, at no additional cost to yourself. All you do is buy a good quality, fashionable, reasonably priced t-shirt from our bonhappi-T.com online store, instead of that one you were going to buy somewhere else. A fixed portion of your payment is transferred, on purchase, on your behalf, to one of our feeding NPOs. 

As one of our customer's said:

SOCIAL IMPACT 2 - feeding

All people-feeding is done through FoodForwardSA, part of the Global FoodBanking Network. They redistribute supermarket and food-company food destined for landfills but given to them instead. Your donation enables FoodForwardSA to supplement meals and get the food to 600 beneficiaries, 75% of whom focus on skills training/education as their feeding is taken care of. The donation amount required to feed someone for a month, that we send on your behalf, is calculated by FoodForward SA.

When you buy a bonhappi-T shirt and choose to feed a dog, we send your donation to the Do More Foundation, who deliver an 8kg bag of Bobtail dog food to the bonhappi-T dog charities: KZN Valley Dogs, Project Dog and Inanda Dog & Cat Project, on your behalf. #DoMore have also agreed to supply specific monthly dog food donations to our charities, irrespective of whether sufficient t-shirts have been purchased - how amazing and kind is that! 




So, we have made it dead easy for you to help out :) all we ask in return is that you do. Bonhappi-T only works if you buy one of our t-shirts - the ball is in your court.

Be happy.

Next Instalment, I'll show you how some corporates have involved themselves with bonhappi-T. Perhaps yours will.

Instalment 2: The problem we are helping to solve

www.bonhappi-T.com

Actually, it's 2 problems at once, with 1 thing - how cool is that 😀  bonhappi-T's DNA is 1bon+1T=2happi which means: 1 good person buys 1 bonhappi-T shirt and instantly makes 2 happy - the good person who gets a quick, easy chance to make a consistent difference in a life and the person/dog who gets food for an entire month (haha I studied Maths so makes sense that our brand essence is a sum!) Here it is in more detail...

PROBLEM 1:

The difficulty for people to regularly make a meaningful difference in the lives of those less fortunate, even though they would like to.

Rural community, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa

CAUSE

* there is little opportunity for everyday people to connect with the less fortunate as the 2 groups lead very different lives

Street Artist Giffy Duminy adds value by painting a wall at Zwakele Primary School

* generally small donations are pooled by consumer brands and then given as one combined payment from the company/brand - we enable people to make a meaningful difference all on their own

Tiffany fed someone for a month, just by buying a bonhappi-T.com shirt for herself :)

PROBLEM 2:

Widespread hunger

CAUSE

* the world produces enough food to feed everyone but poverty causes 1 in 8 people to go hungry every day

Alexandra township residents queuing for donated food

* underprivileged people don't have sufficient money to survive and often go without food

Philipine cooks meals from donated food for the hungry every day

Thankful for a lunch

* almost half of all edible food ends up in landfills

Our feeding partner FoodForward SA secures edible food before it is sent to a landfill for their 600 beneficiary organisations, feeding over 250 000 people a day

Next week, it's all about how we help you sort this out.

Be happy :)

Our Social Business Adventure

This has been a crazy first year for us :) so I thought I would break bonhappi-T up into 'instalments' to let you see...

Instalment 1: How we came up with the idea

A while ago Felix and I were chatting about the fact that most people, given the chance, love to help others in need but often simply don't know how to. So we decided to provide a global, simple, fun way to do it and make meaningful helping out a part of everyday life.

We would create happiness by being the link that quickly and easily connects people who can (all of us) with people who can't (the underprivileged).

We put together a simple mechanism. As most people buy t-shirts, we chose quality, fashionable Ts on the one hand and as hunger is widespread and something everyone can relate to, we chose feeding the hungry, on the other.

To be universal, we created a global eCommerce site and people around the world have created over 50000 days of feeding - so far.

Every time someone buys a bonhappi-T shirt for themselves they feed a hungry mouth for a month as well - not just a day or a week! If we couldn't have found a consistent way to feed for a full month, we wouldn't have started the company.

Our customers choose to feed either a hungry person or a homeless dog when they buy a bonhappi-T. We added dogs as they add value to many families.

We partnered with NPOs FoodForward SA and The Do More Foundation to feed.

We developed a mobile and PC website. We focused our priorities on: manufacturing proudly South African, quality, fashionable, affordable t-shirts; a user friendly online shopping experience that shows exactly who the customer is feeding for a month; local and international express courier partnerships which enable us to offer free shipping as a part of the selling price.

Hope you enjoyed reading this - keep an eye out for the next one :)

Celebrity Chefs' story

Celebrity Chefs join Fashion for Food

14 Celebrity Chefs at the Good Food and Wine Show joined the Fashion for Food happiness movement by choosing bonhappi-Ts and feeding a mouth for a month with every t-shirt chosen.

Australian Chefs George Calombaris and Reuben Davis loved their bonhappi-Ts and took 12 back to Melbourne for their Development team. Together they fed 28 hungry people for a month (we matched their feeding).

George Calombaris, MasterChef Australia judge, in his black Africa smiles bonhappi-T

Reuben Davis in his cobalt mock pocket bonhappi-T, Development Chef at
George's Melbourne restaurant, The Press Club

SA Celebrity Chefs loved the many meals bonhappi-Ts and wore them on their shows. They were each feeding someone for a month while they were showing people how to make many meals :)

Wanna Be Chef J'Something in his navy many meals bonhappi-T takes a selfie with a fan

     SA Chef Kamini Pather in her coral many meals bonhappi-T joins the Fashion for Food happiness movement

The 14 Celebrity Chef Fashion for Food followers, sharing happiness with their bonhappi-Ts, helped generate 7 688 days of feeding in 3 days - that's over 2500 days of feeding each day 😄

Fashion for Food

Fashion for Food

Everything you need to know about how to join the bonhappi-T Fashion for Food happiness movement.