Spreading The Love began in a humble kitchen. In a time of great crisis, Lizelle Marucchi saw families in her community losing their livelihoods and their hope. She didn’t wait for a solution; she became one. Starting with simple food parcels delivered from her own home, Lizelle realized that the hunger was deep and the need was vast. By 2014, that grassroots effort blossomed into a fully registered Non-Profit Organization that has since become a permanent lifeline for the forgotten.
The mission of Spreading the Love is deceptively simple: it is all about giving. It is about giving love to ourselves and then pouring every available minute and resource into those who cannot help themselves. Their work reaches across provincial lines, stretching from the Community Centre in Danville, Pretoria West, all the way to the SASSA House Frail Care Centre in Leeupoort, Limpopo.
We are proud to announce that our Crisis House in Montana is now officially open. This facility serves as a temporary sanctuary for abused mothers and children of all ages found by SAPS, providing a safe bed and a shield of protection while they wait for their forever-after families. This safe haven stands alongside our other permanent facilities where "House Mommies" cherish babies who have survived neglect, and our Frail Care Centre provides dignity to elderly citizens without any state subsidy.
The scale of this mission is best seen through our daily impact. Through our expanded feeding schemes, we now feed an average of 500 people every single day. To understand the weight of this work, one must look at the lives currently under our wings: over one hundred babies and toddlers, seventeen disabled children receiving specialized medical supplies, and more than one hundred elderly citizens who rely on us for their daily survival. We also stand by seventy-five disadvantaged families who depend on our food parcels to keep their households whole.
Since the pandemic, the queues for help have only grown longer, but our resolve has only grown stronger. As we look toward the future, one of our primary goals for 2026 is to open a dedicated homeless shelter to provide a path off the streets for those with nowhere else to turn. The staff and volunteers at Spreading the Love believe in a radical kind of kindness. We believe that no hungry person, no abandoned baby, and no child in crisis should ever be turned away. We are the hands that feed, the arms that hold, and the hearts that heal.
As we celebrate tonight, let us remember that these children and elders are part of our family, too. Please, let’s open our hearts for Spreading the Love, because if we don’t take care of these precious souls, who will?