Sisters Lindy, Tammy and Kirsty have worked to keep search and rescue heroes fed, watered and motivated since the KZN Floods; the reason they do it is to honour their mother, who lost her life during the 2016 flooding in Durban.
Durban, South Africa (16 May 2022) – Sisters Lindy Swales, and Tammy and Kirsty Scriven founded the non-profit Brenda’s Canine Fund in memory of their mother who they lost during the Durban flooding in 2016. During that time, the search and rescue groups working with K9s inspired the sisters so greatly, that they wanted to repay the efforts. Now six years later, they do that and so much more!
The Brenda’s Canine Fund (also known as Brenda’s Angels) was created to train more search and rescue dogs, ensuring the best possible teams available to the South African public. Funds raised by the fund are used to train new K9s for the SAPS and to purchase any specialised equipment that falls outside of the department’s budget.
During that harrowing flood of 2016, their mother, Brenda Scriven, was washed away and sadly never found. The search and rescue teams worked tirelessly for weeks but to no avail. It was during that time that the sisters saw how much work goes into the K9 search and rescue.
According to Kirsty, one fully trained K9 can do the search work of between 20 to 40 people. This is a massive aid during times of natural disaster. By funding the training of these incredible dogs, they are able to ensure more people are found each year.
There is a shortage of K9s and handlers throughout South Africa, so raising awareness is key to making more of these teams available in the country.
The importance of these teams became evident again this past month when Durban suburbs and neighbourhoods once again fell victim to flooding and mudslides. The natural disaster has devastated the city and claimed hundreds of lives. The work done by Brenda’s Angels was thrust into the spotlight once again. This time, Lindy, Tammy and Kirsty rallied their networks to support the search and rescue efforts at the Virginia Airport.
K9 Aid on the Ground
Putting aside the usual training and awareness campaigns for the SAPS K9 Search and Rescue, the sisters started organising and sorting aid for the teams involved in the search and rescue efforts. Based at the Virginia Airport, most organisations started getting support and aid to and from that point.
Since the start of the flooding in April, Brenda’s Angels have collected and distributed over 3000kgs of dog and cat food. What started as aid for the K9 teams quickly grew to enough food to feed all the organisations taking in lost and abandoned animals.
Not only have they managed animal aid, but the Brenda’s Angels team have also made sure the K9 handlers, search and rescue teams, pilots, medics and every hero on the ground, get what they need to do the job; from water and food to letters and cards of encouragement from the public.
One of the sad realities of this flood has been the massive amount of animals in distress. Being dedicated to animals, Brenda’s Angels are filling the gap and helping where ever they can. They were recently the recipient of a bakkie load of pet food from DC Coffee in Johannesburg. The coffee shop ran a food collection campaign and sent it to Durban.
Not only did DC Coffee send the food, but they also sent “Dog Hero” cookies for all the K9’s still working to find missing people in Durban.
“We saw an article on Good Things Guy (read that here) the other day and thought, ah man what a special and heartfelt gesture.
Never did we think that not only would this very coffee shop make us our own special note, but that they would rally the support of their customers and chose us as the NPO to support.
Today we received a bakkie load of donated doggy food, all the way for JHB, for our SAR K9’s as well as for other animal organisations affected by the floods.
In that donation, was a super special batch of home backed and label cookies just for our K9 Heroes.
Dc Coffee Co, from the bottom of our hearts THANK YOU. We are honoured and extremely grateful, as are all the doggies who’s lives that you have changed”
At the end of the day, the biggest hope is to help families find closure. You can find out more or support the angels via the Facebook page here.
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