Spar Bonsa

The Spar Bonsa Cancer Fun Walk

The SPAR BONSA CANCER FUN WALK was founded and organised by Priscilla Lambert in 2013 for the Bonsa Group of Companies, as part of their CSR. It seemed fitting to organise this event, as so many of Spar Bonsa’s valued customers, as well as the director’s families had been affected by this dreaded disease.

Priscilla, who was employed by Spar Bonsa as their Marketing Manager, had gone through her own brush with Melanoma Cancer and wanted to give back to the community and create cancer awareness.

With the assistance of co-sponsors sourced by Priscilla within the Zimbabwe business community, the first walk took to the streets in Bulawayo boasting 430 walkers and subsequently it was decided the walk would become an annual one.

In 2015 Priscilla had the Spar Bonsa Cancer Support logo designed for the front of the t-shirts and they became not only synonymous to the walk, but highly sort after! The back of the T/shirts were graced with all the sponsors logos.

With the slogan being “One Step at a Time”, the walk grew in leaps and bounds since its humble beginnings in 2013 and went on to become the largest charity event in Southern Zimbabwe and the second largest in Zimbabwe!

In February 2016, Chilli Pepper Marketing was founded by Priscilla. She continued to work with Spar Bonsa in her own capacity.

The Cancer Walk progressed from a simple walk and surpassed its expectations growing into a phenomenal event, which boasted over 4000 participants who either walked, ran or cycled the route in 2019.

The Cancer Walk sported various segments all organised by Priscilla / Chilli Pepper Marketing:

• A 7. 8km route, which had the co-sponsors manning their own water-points.
• Entertainment – MC, DJ, local artists & dancers, fashion shows, zumba, crossfit, face painting, a kiddies area included various jumping castles and mechanical bulls, plus so much more.
• Stalls – Corporate and community stalls provided an opportunity to showcase their products.
• The Chilli Pepper Marketing raffle – An abundance of prizes was generously donated by various Tourism Operators, Corporate companies and organisations, therefore giving many people a fair chance to win. It created a hype of excitement as the top 3 prizes donated were weekends away to various local lodges in Zimbabwe. Every year the proceeds raised from the raffle were donated to the Cancer Association and Bulawayo Island Hospice by Chilli Pepper Marketing.

The Cancer Walk enjoyed a successful and phenomenal 7-year life-span starting in 2013 and took its last steps in 2019, due to the COVID-19 pandemic surfacing globally and the economic decline in the country.