Many of the staff at eBucks, the reward of choice, exchanged their laptops for spades as they headed to Tembisa to work in the permaculture garden at Zithikeni Secondary School for their annual volunteer day yesterday.

The permaculture garden at the school provides vegetables, not only to the many vulnerable children at Zithikeni Secondary School, but also to Are-Boekeng, a local hospice for orphans that focuses on the care of children infected and affected by HIV and AIDS.

"We are very passionate about 'green' issues and to be able to provide these children with some food security through supporting an organic permaculture garden makes all the hard work worthwhile" said Jessica Yellin, Head of Corporate Communications at eBucks.

Jeunesse Park, founder of Food and Trees for Africa agrees with Yellin, "The food garden not only improves the nutritional needs of those who benefit from it, but also educates them in sustainable resource use and management. These skills can in turn, be passed on to other community members, most of whom live below the breadline."

Yellin said in facing up to the challenges of climate change and sustainable development, eBucks is approaching 'greening' in a multitude of ways. Earlier in the year eBucks became the first rewards programme to achieve carbon neutrality and has implemented various energy saving initiatives to reduce its emissions. eBucks is also running an extensive education and awareness campaign for its employees and recently launched a 'green' category in the eBucks shop, thereby enabling members to make 'green' choices when buying online.

Yellin concluded that "getting out of the office and actually doing some manual labour grounds the team and brings them face to face with the reality of life of millions of people in this country."

Note to editors:

• eBucks became the world's first multi-partner rewards programme in the world to attain carbon neutrality. Over 4 500 plants from the eBucks Big Green Maze were donated to low income homeowners within FNB's affordable housing project in Cosmo City as well as homeowners in the government's RDP housing project in that community.
  
  
• Permaculture is the design and maintenance of sustainable, ecologically favourable, energy efficient agricultural and horticultural systems. The concept includes not only agroforestry but the integration of organic farming principles and intermediate technology, the use of renewable resources and recycling, the exploitation of biodiversity, conservation and habitat protection, as well as social and institutional well-being. It can be applied to urban as well as rural environments.
  
  
• Food and Trees for Africa (FTFA) is South Africa's national greening organisation that develops, manages and promotes greening, climate change, sustainable national resource management and food security programmes. In the past 18 years, FTFA has distributed over 3.3 million trees and helped to set up over 2 000 organic food gardens for the poorest in South Africa.
  

About eBucks:

eBucks, the rewards programme offered by First National Bank (FNB) and RMB Private Bank, is acknowledged as one of South Africa's leading rewards programmes with highly active members spending in excess of 80% of the eBucks earned in any given month.