Protea Hotel Fire & Ice! has been fully committed to the #TBDAfrica (The Blanket Drive) for five years and this year it hopes to get more blankets than ever to the people who need them this winter.
With the new Protea Hotel Fire & Ice! Menlyn having recently opened its doors in Pretoria, collections are set for a boost. Protea Hotel Fire & Ice! Cape Town and Protea Hotel Fire & Ice! Melrose Arch have already been collecting blankets for this huge Twitter initiative for a number of years.
“Protea Hotel Fire & Ice! Menlyn is delighted to be a part of such a noble campaign that started so small and has been taken up by the South African Twitter community with such enthusiasm,” says Johan Cronje, Protea Hotel Fire & Ice! Menlyn general manager.
#TBDAfrica started in 2101 when Melanie Minnaar (@melanieminnaar) called on the South African Twitter community to donate blankets to those in need. She hoped to get no more than 20 people together for a “Tweet-up” (a Twitter meet-up) where they would hand over blankets they were donating to a charity together. The idea went national and 700 blankets were collected. The next year 2 700 blankets were collected and every year the number has grown substantially.
All three Protea Hotel Fire & Ice! hotels are now collection points for blankets and individuals and companies are asked to drop their donations off at each.
Last year Protea Hotel Fire & Ice! Cape Town and Protea Hotel Fire & Ice! Melrose Arch together collected more than 4000 blankets. These were distributed amongst four charities.
“We keep our guests warm and happy, and we feel we’d like to extend that – to the small degree that we can – to people who are less fortunate and as a result struggle through the cold winters we have in South Africa,” says Danny Bryer, Protea Hotels director of sales, marketing and revenue.
Blankets can be dropped off at Protea Hotel Fire & Ice! Menlyn, Melrose Arch and Cape Town from this week until 28 May, when the blankets will be handed over to the selected charities.
