Every morning, Margot Janse drove to her restaurant, The Tasting Room at Le Quartier Français in Franschhoek. One morning she thought about the extraordinary contrast around her. On one side was a professional kitchen filled with exceptional produce and food. On the other were children living only a short distance away who were going to school hungry.

​

The contrast was impossible to ignore.

 

In 2009, Margot began making nutritious muffins for 70 children at a local preschool. That small act became Isabelo.

 

Over the years, the organisation grew from those first 70 children into a programme providing thousands of meals every week across the Franschhoek Valley.

Margot left The Tasting Room in 2017 and made Isabelo her focus.

 

Today, food remains her language for creating change. Because for Margot, feeding a child isn't charity in the abstract.

​

It is something practical. Something immediate. Something that matters.