At King Price Insurance, we may be known for our quirky commercials and our cooler-than-cool, barely-dressed kingly mascot, but there’s a more serious side to this company, and it’s a softer side too.
When we’re not teasing our competitors with cheeky recruitment billboards, or dowsing the delegates of the Insurance Institute of South Africa’s Conference in wads of cold cash, we’re look for ways to uplift and improve the lives of the people around us…. And in doing so, to uplift and improve our own lives.
Spreading the warmth through South Africa
A couple of months ago, at the start of a freezing winter, we urged our employees and partners to contribute blankets to a local charity. The ‘ambitious’ target of 500 blankets was eclipsed by almost 50%, with 870 blankets being delivered on the 10th of July in four of the king’s branded vans.
“We actually never expected to collect so many blankets,” says Natalie Graham, General Manager for our broker channel, “So, our biggest challenge was transporting all the blankets, and what a wonderful challenge to have!”
The recipients of the blankets were PEN, who do inner-city community work in Pretoria supporting the homeless, clinics for mothers and babies, TB monitoring and helping prostitutes who want to start a new life; and The Viva Foundation who work within the Mamelodi area assisting families in need, and rape victims. Their work includes poverty alleviation, support and they run a township art project.
Assisting our sisters
Sunday commemorated Women’s Day in South Africa, a day that remembers the thousands of women who fought against the evil of apartheid. In honour of these women and their struggle, we have asked all of the queens, princesses and ladies of the kingdom to donate clothing and soft toys to the women who come to PEN. These are women who have been beaten, are dealing with drug addiction, or have been forced into prostitution, and who come to the charity looking for help, often with little else than the shirts on their backs.
“As part of our blanket drive we identified some other needs at Pen. Pen does a lot of work with the prostitutes in the inner city of Pretoria, whether it’s simply to listen to their stories, or to help them with clothing, or going as far as taking them off the street and in some cases helping them get into a rehab for their drug addiction,” explains Natalie Graham.
A heartfelt reminder of the loneliness these women face can be summed up in Natalie’s answer to the question, ‘why the soft toys?’
“Of the women who stay at the facility while they wait to move to rehab, the soft toys provide comfort and safety, which they don’t have on the streets.”
This, in addition to King Price’s other initiatives and activities throughout the year is just one more way we are trying to build the South Africa in which we would like to live, with (okay maybe not so random) acts of kindness and compassion. We may be able to laugh at ourselves, but we are serious about living with purpose- one of our cherished King Price family values.
Natalie encourages everyone to see what they can do to ‘pay it forward’ and find ways to bring joy to those who have less. “Kindness costs you nothing, but the benefits of it are endless.”
