The 45th Hong Ning Spring Festival and Family day took place at Carnival City on 6 September 2025 and was a great success.

In attendance we had the pleasure of the company of Minister Qin Zhanpeng, Counsellor Liao Xiaoying and Consul Xiao Yi from the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in SA. In addition we also had Acting Consulate General Zhou Yujiang and Consul Yang Hui Bo from the Consulate General's office of the People’s Republic of China in Johannesburg.

The event this year was smaller due to venue constraints. Last year at Rivonia Central we had between 2000 to 2500 people attending. This year we had roughly 1500 people. The distance to travel was also a deterrent to our usual supporters.
Nonetheless the day was enjoyed by all who did arrive as people were able to socialise with friends they had not seen in while and enjoy the performances on stage by artists who volunteered their services free of charge.

As you are all aware this is primarily an occasion for raising funds for the increasingly challenging financial needs of the Home. Hong Ning currently runs at net operating loss of R160 000 per month which has risen considerably as we had to install alternative electrical solar power due to the continuous disruption caused by cable theft. Water supply has also been unreliable and we had to take measures to stabilise this which also meant additional expenditure.

We also had to create an isolation area for patients returning from various hospitals to monitor them for the highly contagious “super bugs” that are present at these institutions. The maintaining of these extensive levels of care added to the costs of running Hong Ning.
In addition, our numbers have increased since Covid. We now have 27 elderly residents compared to only 9 during Covid when we could not accept new residents and also the effects of Covid had thinned out our numbers considerably. This also resulted in added expenses in employing more nursing staff to care for the additional residents. The food, electricity and water bill have also increased exponentially.
Therefore, although we had a record breaking year so far as donations are concerned at yesterday’s event, we still fall short in terms of expenses over income for the year. At our recent AGM it was revealed that this figure exceeded R1 million for the past financial year so essentially we may just meet our expenses for this financial year.

We are extremely grateful to all our donors, without which we could not be able to keep the doors of the Home open, and wish to express our extreme thanks for your continued support.
To stage an event such as this requires enormous effort, energy, preparation and teamwork and it is so heartening to see many of the community volunteering their assistance for this event every year.

Although we celebrate the monetary donations on stage there members of the public who provide their time and services to Hong Ning throughout the year as well and we are equally grateful to them for their consideration of the needs of the elderly residents of the Home.
You have all contributed to improving the lives of the elderly folk at Hong Ning, so on behalf of the residents, staff and management we wish to express our eternal gratitude.

Winkin Leong (Joint Chaiman)
Francis Lai Hong (Joint Chairman)
Walter Pon (Honorary Life President)

View more photos here.