Topaz Page-Green was born and raised in South Africa before becoming an international model. Her love for SA has stayed strong and she now feeds thousands of children daily.
Born and raised in South Africa, Topaz Page-Green grew up just outside the city of Johannesburg. Her parents named her after their love of geology, a career path they both took pride in. While living in London, she was scouted at a train stop by a modelling agent and her career blossomed from there.
Topaz later moved to America where she met then boyfriend Joaquin Pheonix. If that name rings a bell, it is because he played legendary Johnny Cash in the movie ‘Walk the Line’ alongside Reese Witherspoon. Topaz and Joaquin visited South Africa in 2003 and saw the desperate need of the children.
She went back to America and set up the Lunchbox Fund, which was launched in 2005. The Lunchbox Fund feeds thousands of children daily. The fund provides one meal each day to 22,000 underprivileged high school students, totalling more than 2.6 million meals a year.
The project was kicked of in Soweto and has since grown into a sustainable organisation. Archbishop Desmond Tutu was named the organisation’s Patron and even though Topaz and Joaquin are no longer together, he and his sister Rain Pheonix are still heavily involved in the project.
“Our goal is to uphold a child’s right to a basic education; no child should be kept from learning by hunger or household food insecurity” – The Lunchbox Fund
The Lunchbox Fund is currently South Africa’s only non-government national school nutrition provider. Not only does the organisation feed the youth, they also offer stipend employment to the women within the communities that the feeding scheme runs.
“We partner with local organisations to ensure that child care, stimulation and education is provided alongside our nutrition. This ‘resource stacking’ has powerful community impact. In schools with over 80 children, we provide stipends which enable the school to hire previously unemployed women from within the local community to prepare and serve meals. Stipends are paid directly to our Food Mamas each month.”
The Lunchbox Fund is run in every single province in South Africa and focuses on the communities with the highest need. In the Western Cape alone, they provide 1.1 million meals. 100% of all donations go directly towards feeding the children as all operational costs are paid for by a private donor.
The organisation lists that each meal costs as little as R2.50 (or 0.25c in dollars). They accept donations from both the US and SA but the US donations make the biggest impact because of the exchange rate. For example, $50 feeds one child for an entire year and $250 feeds that child for their entire high school career.
It is so wonderful to hear stories like this, of South Africans going into the world to live their dreams but still keeping their hearts firmly planted in SA. You can find out more about the organisation here.
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