Another Saturday Spent Making a Difference at Bottelary.

December 16, 2010

We came, we saw, we spread some love!

What a privilege it has been to be able to make a difference in this special community since the official launch of the feeding scheme in October.

Every second weekend, thanks to the perseverance and dedication of Annemi Brand and the Helping Angels crew, we have been lucky enough to have an opportunity to get involved in doing something meaningful with our Saturdays.

In addition to feeding anywhere between 200 – 300 hungry mouths that sometimes might not see another meal all day, activities and classes are held to share a little fun and help the members of these families learn a new skill.

Every second Saturday we hold an informal beading and knitting workshop for the moms of this community, where they get a chance to spend some time perfecting a new skill – or a long lost craft. This weekend we were surprised to see the turnout double, as a new farm in community joined. We’ll be looking for more volunteers to help with this workshop so if you know how to knit, or make pretty things out of beads, we need YOU!

While the moms are beading and knitting, the fathers of the community get together to test their strategic skills in a game of chess or simply let loose and have a good old fashioned game of dominos. We’re also going to be working on a project to help these men earn their drivers licenses to make them employable as drivers. Work is scarce and some of these families survive on less than R1000 a month. More details on the drivers project to follow – give me a shout if you’d like to become involved.

As always, we had a fun art class for the young girls of the community. Previous workshops have included card making , dancing and of course , painting, which always goes down a treat. Some of these kids are really creative and they had a blast getting messy with their paint brushes.

This Saturday the girls took it to a whole new level, deciding to use their waterpaint as face paint too!

I’d like to send a huge thanks to all the special friends and volunteers who have given of their time and hearts over the past months to come make a difference in this community. These Saturdays have come to mean so much to the families who’s lives we are impacting. Not to mention the impact these families have had on us, the volunteers, too.