Today was the Nippers’ (Fish Hoek Surf Lifesaving Club) street collection fundraiser for SA Champs and equipment.

I accompanied my son since he’s only 7. We chose the local Pick n Pay arcade entrance, hoping that the majority of shoppers would see us and donate a few silver coins.

I found it quite interesting to see how some people, dressed in their best, chose to look the other way. Some looked at us with interest and would say “when I come back” (yeah right!) others just looked through us.

The people who kindly donated, were mostly from Ocean View (in town to do their weekly shopping) and some from the local community. One of the fellow Nipper dad’s put a R20 in the tin (he did the same for his 3 kids who were also collecting, so nice of him!) another local lady also gave R20 and another R20 from a fellow shopper while we stood in the quee at Pick n Pay after our “official” collection.

I was really grateful for all the hard working people from Ocean View, some street cleaners, who generously donated silver coins. Parting with the little that they have to support my son.

Most surprising of all were our impromptu collaboration with some buskers from Ocean View. They not only donated some coins, they also let us place our tin infront of them with the leaflets while they played some jazz for 30 minutes!! After this they placed their own collection hat down and we donated R20 to them.

We stood together outside the Pick n Pay for another 45 minutes, playing jazz together, one on guitar, one on djembe drums, one on the trumped and me with the collection tin while my son held up the leaflets.

It was fun! Passersby put some coins in the buskers hat while others put coins in our collection tin. An unusual collaboration! They even bought a 2L Gingerbeer to share with us (we didn’t take them up on the offer though since we were only staying for one more song).

This unexpected collaboration really made the street collection more fun! If it weren’t for the sun then we’d probably still be jamming with the buskers!