The vice-chairman of the local CPF, Gordon Cudmore, with Annaleen van Coller. Photos: Melkbos.net

How do you transform a grim police station into a place where people want to be? You get a busy bee like Annaleen van Coller onto the job.

The Melkbosstrand hairstylist has single-handedly started 110 WhatsApp Street Watch groups consisting of 12 000 members, and raised the money to refurnish and repaint the interior of the local police station.  At the moment Van Coller is busy raising money to paint the exterior of the police station.

Van Coller’s hard work was recognised yesterday morning when the vice-chairman of the local CPF, Gordon Cudmore, handed her a certificate of appreciation, and both the Milnerton Cluster Commander Major General Anneqah Jordaan and Melkbosstrand police station commander Captain Ronita van der Toorn thanked her. Said Captain van der Toorn: “I’m thinking of giving her a rank! This project has improved the morale of the members.”

Grim makes way for seaside-feel
The police station’s transformation has taken money and hard work. Van Coller got donations from Allan Gray Equity Fund, the CEO of the Atlantic Beach Estate, Harry White; the Damhuis restaurant, Seafood Lapa, local farmer Mr Currie, Melkbos Hardware, Prominent Verwe, the sports club, the Melkbosstrand police station; she herself contributed money raised from two shows. And she got working.

“I’ve been called a “busy bee,” she says surveying the interior of the police station. “I’m sometimes here from 9 in the morning until 8 at night.” She decorated old mirror frames with seashells; she created the whimsical driftwood and shell sculpture adorning an upstairs cupboard; she jollied up the staircase and cloakrooms with bands of pebbles she picked up and arranged; sourced paintings of seascapes for walls. She’s done all of this single-handedly.

Mahala
“I get mahala for this,” Van Coller says. Meaning, nothing. She does it for the love of the job.

She surveys a doorway at the end of a corridor critically and says that she will be making two large seahorses to flank the door. She surveys an old couch in another office, and groans. She’s planning to make decorative objects for each of the 10 offices in the police station. She won’t stop, until the job’s completed.

Donations are needed to paint the exterior of the Melkbosstrand police station. Contact Annaleen van Coller on 084 646 0117 or the chairman of the Melkbosstrand CPF Samie Kleinhans on 0825732068.
The money can be paid into the CPF’s Absa savings account (Tableview branch), account number 9291720444