Tuesday, 26 February 2008
Talk Radio 702 morning show host, John Robbie, this morning galvanized Joburgers to put their money where their mouths are and donate GPS systems to the SA Police Service, to better assist officers when responding to emergencies.
As a result, 730 Garmin Nüvi GPS systems will be donated to the SAPS, first and foremost for its flying squad members and then to be rolled out to other officers across Gauteng.
Robbie put out the call this morning to listeners, encouraging ordinary members of the public and corporates to donate funds to purchase Garmin GPS systems for SAPS response cars.
The appeal followed a request that was made to the station by an SAPS flying squad member.
“Our group head of news and talk programming, Yusuf Abramjee, was chatting to a flying squad officer recently who said that response times to emergencies are being hampered because of difficulties in getting to streets and finding addresses, especially at night. In one instance, the flying squad took 40 minutes to respond to an emergency. The officer in question said that having a GPS in his response car would help alleviate such problems, so we thought there was a definite need to assist in equipping these cars with GPS systems,” said Robbie.
Talk Radio 702 approached Garmin for assistance, which agreed to sponsor 30 GPS systems for flying squad vehicles. Off the back of this, Robbie took his appeal on-air this morning, asking the community to help even further.
With 221 flying squad vehicles in Gauteng, Robbie hoped to try and equip each of them with a GPS unit. The response, instead, was overwhelming.
“By the end of the morning we had raised enough to purchase 700 GPS systems, which combined with the 30 already donated by Garmin, brought the total to 730 units! We were blown away by the amazing support for this appeal and can’t thank our listeners enough for helping us make a difference in our community. As usual, we made the call and our listeners responded. This positive response is very encouraging,” added Robbie.
Dozens of sponsors heeded the call, with many corporates pledging batches of 10 GPS units to the cause, including Putco Bus, Mutual and Federal, Primedia Broadcasting, Altech Netstar, HiFi Corporation, Sineka, Sanlam Private Investments, Oki Printing, Fidelity Security, Discovery Health, Melrose Arch and Map IT/Teleatlas. Incredible Connection donated 20 units while Tracker donated a total of 33 units.
The GPS systems being donated are Garmin Nüvi 200W units, which come with detailed maps on a bright, widescreen display with clear voice-prompted directions. The units come preloaded with South African street maps.
All 730 units will be handed over to the SAPS at a ceremony to held at Talk Radio 702’s offices in Sandton on 11 March 2008.
This initiative follows the station’s previous attempts to mobilise support for the police, including the donation, through sponsors, of 60 ID tool fingerprint identification machines and pressure to change the law that allowed for the taxing of payouts to the families of police officers killed in the line of duty.
Such initiatives stem out of Talk Radio 702’s strong community-focus and objective to try and change its immediate community for the better.
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