The online kitchenware store Yuppiechef blackmailed Woolworths to donate to their charity… this is their story.
Johannesburg, South Africa – It is kind of a funny story how eight years ago, the now super popular online store managed to get Woolies in between a rock and a hard place. And it all started with one very expensive typo…
Celebrating their 12th birthday this year, Yuppiechef took a look back at the defiantly charitable good deed reminding us of how cool that oopsie really was.
Valentines Day 2010 was the year of the lovebirds. Woolworths was running a massive competition for one lucky couple only they made a slight typo on the web address which was displayed on their advertising posters in every single store across the country.
Yuppiechef noticed and snuck in, registering the typo address and sending Woolworths a ransom note.
“To get it back, and have us point the address to their competition asap, we’re asking Woolies to match, rand for rand, all donations made towards our 2010 charity, Soil for Life, between now and Valentines Day (and to be nice, we’ll put a limit of R5000 on it). Sound good? Excellent.”
Check out the “ransom note” below:
People started donating and Woolworths accepted the ransom the very next day. They even bumped it up and challenged other corporates to join in and make a donation. Within the two week period they managed to raise R100,000 towards Soil for Life.
Soil For Life is an NGO based in Constantia. The organisation helps to educate and train under-privileged communities to grow their own food gardens. They work together with communities to help to create sustainable gardens able to feed the families that grow them.
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Soil for Life confirmed that between 2009 and 2016 3,930 people from low-income areas were trained as home food gardeners. They did the maths and confirmed that on average each gardener’s household constists of an average of six people, thus making a positive impact in the lives of over 17, 000 people. You can find out about the charity here.
“We’ll always be grateful to Woolies for playing along and not sending their lawyers in with big wooden spoons”
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