Spreading the Love – Bottelray Community Upliftment Project

Wow! What an amazing day! I can honestly say that Saturday exceeded my expectations and I am truly blessed to know the amazing people that gave up of their time this weekend to help a community desperately in need of a little TLC.

The Helping Angels team has started a feeding scheme to help the impoverished community of farm workers in the Bottelray area. Headed up by a real life angel, Annemi Brand, they are providing meals for these families who sometimes wont see another meal that day. In certain heartbreaking cases, not even that weekend. In addition to the feeding scheme, Annemi has put together a program to help teach the kids basic social skills while playing games, getting creative and just generally enjoying some fun time away from the harsh reality of their difficult lives.

On Saturday we were blessed enough to have the opportunity to start an upliftment program for the parents in the community too. It was amazing to see how much they enjoyed having a little time out to learn some new skills, chat a bit and enjoy some “me” time.

The amazing group of volunteers made Saturday such a success. Everyone worked together so beautifully and got stuck in from minute one, teaching, loving, helping, caring and handing out hugs. What a privilege to know these special human beings.

Lynne and her mother had volunteered to help teach the ladies to knit, but were pleasantly surprised to see that there were quite a few experienced knitters in the group who got to clicking those needles straight away, including Adrienne’s awesome gran who came along to help out too.

Marike had the fantastic idea to set up a beading workshop, teaching the mothers how to make earrings, necklaces and all sorts of pretty jewelery. It made their day when they learned that whatever they had made they could take home!

Adrienne, Cindy, Justine, Riaan, Lee Anne and Robyn spent the morning painting outside in the sun with a group of delightful young girls who thoroughly enjoyed naming their groups and swishing their colourful paint brushes!

The men were introduced to the art of chess thanks to the help of Llew, Lee and Gill. We were all surprised by how keen they were to learn and how quickly they got into it. It just goes to show how few recreational activities are available to them, and how much we take everything that is so freely available to us for granted.

One of the highlights was Cindy’s impromptu dance lessons – the kids had an amazing time shaking their little booties to the sounds of Shakira and Freshly Grounds ‘Waka Waka’ – “its time for Africa!” Even some of the moms joined in, loving the moves, loving the love.

A few special mentions go out to Adrienne and Lyn Green Stationers for their donation of stationary and card making supplies, to Cindy for the wool and knitting gear, Ismail for his cash donation, Llew and Gill for the chess boards, as well as Marike for the mammoth donation of beads and art supplies. Its mind blowing how resourceful everyone was, and I thank each and everyone of you from the bottom of my heart.

You can check out the more of the pics on facebook here and if you’d like to get involved, get hold of our Facebook page here.

We’ll be back in two weeks time to spread a little more love. See you then South Africa! xxx

Lyn Green Stationers

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