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Another week has just whizzed by and as always there is so much on the go!!!!

On Saturday, my daughter, Sarah, and I met Abegail and her daughter, Mandy, at the office.  I wish I had taken a photo of Mandy sitting sorting all the beanies, but she has done an amazing job.  Here are just some of the beautifully sized and stacked beanies:

I mentioned last week that I am looking for additional people to help sew together blankets and my first port of call this week was House Elpidos where I met Louise Zietsman.  Louise’s son was diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 19 and Louise decided to leave her full time job and dedicate her time to helping him establish a normal lifestyle.  She quickly realised that this was easier said than done because of the serious lack of support for young adults diagnosed with schizophrenia.  So, she decided to be that support, not only for her son, but for eight other people between the ages of 25 and 45.  She purchased a house located near to the facility they visit twice a week for occupational therapy and created a family home.  Louise is very interested in KAS and has taken a blanket pack to see whether she can interest some of the residents in helping sew them together.  We certainly hope we can welcome them on board shortly.

Speaking of volunteers who help us sew, we were thrilled to receive a large batch of beautifully sewn together blankets from the dedicated gogos of Soweto who meet at the Chiawelo Community Centre very near to where Lindi and Wandi live.  These ladies have been sewing blankets for KAS for years now and we have always been grateful for their support.  We look forward to distributing these shortly.

Gina and I met Lindi and Wandi in Soweto on Wednesday for a distribution at the very well managed Retsepisitswe Day Care Centre where 68 children are cared for by Irene and her dedicated team of teachers/care givers.  We were invited into each of the four classrooms to see what the children were up to.  The very young ones were playing on the carpet in their classroom, another class was colouring in and others were having story time.  The older children were learning to identify flags from around the world and I was so impressed by how many flags they could recognise.

From left to right:  Wandi, Lindi, Irene and Gina with your contribution to Retsepisitswe. 

Irene and ladies within her community had sewn together KAS blankets for the children and we had a wonderful time wrapping the children in these and giving them each a beanie, a top and a toy.  I also left food with the school and the children were looking forward to fresh apples and some hearty soup, rice and bread with jam.  Thanks to those who have contributed so generously via the shop for food distributions – you make this possible and it makes such a difference!

Enjoy these photos taken at this distribution.

Today’s opening of mail took place at G4S so that the staff could help us unpack.  We took over their Training Room and had opened all the mail in no time at all.  As always we had great fun and one of our younger volunteers, Maxine enjoyed posing with some of the items we received!

I am looking forward to having Ronda back next week – as they say in the classic, two heads are better than one!!!!