Good Morning Angels: Festive cheer for 35 families and 63 children from Laerskool Oosterkruin in Germiston

BACKGROUND: The Laerskool Oosterkruin Primary in Germiston Samaritans Project was started 12 years ago by the school receptionist, Anita Visser. She works with parents and children every day and realised that there was a need for food assistance to children who would come to school hungry. This also means that their families do not have food. Currently there are 63 pre-primary and primary school children who need food assistance from 35 families. The children receive breakfast in the morning and lunch before they go home. 

Over holidays, extra food parcels are provided to the families. On 12 December, the Samaritans are planning a special Christmas day for these families, with a small gift for the children, boerie rolls, cool drink and cake as well as a jumping castle, music and games. They also want to pack extra food parcels for the families for the long December/ January school holidays, to ensure that the children and their parents do not go hungry. Usually, they project receives enough donations of non-perishable food products from donations within the school, but donations have been extremely low as most families are struggling to get by this year.

REQUEST FOR: 35 families (+/- 63 pre-primary and primary school going children) from Laerskool Oosterkruin Primary (call Anita Visser - receptionist at school who started the school project 12 years ago)   

REQUEST FROM: Jaco Smit, parent and project volunteer 

ANGEL: Bonnie Cooper, MD of our fabulous Festive sponsors, Roman’s Pizza 

SPONSORING: Roman’s Pizza will assist Laerskool Oosterkruin Primary’s Samaritan Project with R20 000 to provide food for the families over the long December/January school holidays. Roman’s will also supply food hampers for the families and fresh hot pizza for the Samaritan’s special Christmas celebration on 12 December.

ORIGINAL REQUEST:

Morning Good morning Angels,

First we would like to thank 94.2 and all your sponsors for all the good you have been doing to communities and individuals over the years. Like many others, I am coming with a request and story that I can only hope will catch the right eye and can have a happy ending.

Where does one start, well a guess at the beginning. This project started as a small initiative by a school administrative lady, it has since turned into a project that provides needy children in the school with support and also assists their direct families.

A bit of background on the project. 

This project was started 12 years ago by a school administrative lady, she took the initiative to just kook porridge in the morning and provide breakfast to needy children in the school.

Today it has evolved into a whole school/community project providing breakfast and lunch to the needy children in the school and providing food to their direct family in the form of small food parcels.    

This project is not funded by any organisation/s, all funds and food are donations from parents, family members and friends in the community. I have been personally involved in the project for the last 7 year. 

Usually before school holidays we try to pack food parcels to help the family during the school holiday.

So this is where 94.2 good morning angels come in …

I think it is a fair comment to make that this has been an extremely difficult year given the world-wide pandemic of COVOD-19 which hit the whole world and affected everyone in some form or way. Needless to say that the poor have been hit hardest.   

We are therefore asking for assistance to make this December holiday one to remember for these children and their families.

There are currently +/- 35 families (+/- 63 pre-primary and primary school going children), which are supported by this project.

The aim is to provide each family with a food parcel/s for the December / Christmas school holiday (which is 6 weeks long). Now for something like this to happen and be successful we need lots of help (any non – perishable food)

This year the food donations and money donations have declined and only small amounts of food were being distributed to these families. Due to COVID-19  schools have been closed for a big portion of the year and food could not be provided to these children and their families as regularly.

•     We would like to continue the tradition of providing food parcels to these families to support them during the school holiday, and  

•     Let’s not forget it’s Christmas and like in the past we also have the legendary Christmas party planned for the kids and their families. Just for one day of the year we want to say to these families forget about all the difficult times and come and enjoy the day filled with fun,  games and something to eat.

•     What will a Christmas party be with a gift for each child.

Like I mentioned above this has been a different kind of difficult year and there have been so many challenges, for this to be a reality this year we need nothing short of a miracle.

This time every year the project has some funds available as a starting point to help with all the costs that need to be covered, this year there is just about nothing.

We are battling to provide the families with day to day support. There are still a number of kids that don’t have a sponsored gift for the Christmas party. 

Our ask is for assistance in any form, I am one of the volunteer’s that’s been supporting this project for the past few years.

I have also attached the sponsor letter we use when approaching people for assistance.   

Kind regards

Jaco