Empire Toy & Stationery contacted Food & Trees for Africa (FTFA) in January 2009 as they wished to donate a percentage of sales from their Butterfly board and paper products.

The first R10 000 was received in October 2010 and was allocated to Trees for All.  The Merchandising and Sales team will plant 30 trees on Friday 29 July at Thula Sizwe Primary School in Tembisa. The other 81 trees that Empire donated have been allocated to various schools in the Gauteng area. 

On 3 May 2011, at the Pick n Pay Golf Day, another cheque of R25 000 was handed over to FTFA. Charmaine Sarak of Empire Toy & Stationery suggested that the money be allocated to a needy food garden project.  They chose Zama Montessori Centre from a selection of beneficiaries proposed. 

This centre was established in 1988 as an after school care facility. Because of the turbulent nature of education for children in the township areas, the centre was immediately drawn into addressing the educational needs of the children and families it served. In 1990 a preschool was established and a primary school was started in 1995. Throughout the years the centre has run various supplementary programmes including parent education workshops, parent child home based programmes, soup kitchens, HIV support groups and many others. 

Zama Montessori centre aims to give support to families with young children, through programmes that provide quality education for the children and auxiliary support structure for the child’s family. They are facing various challenges, but one in particular is the need to feed children healthy nutritious meals. This led to the application for a food garden through FTFA’s Food Gardens for Africa programme. The centre currently caters for 75 children ranging from two to 11 years, and it is hoped that the gardens will supplement the feeding scheme. Empire Toy & Stationery looks forward to seeing this bare piece of land transformed into a lush and productive food garden.