THAF Update: February

The yoga class was a fundraising
event that will surely catch on.

Miriam, African Impact - St Lucia's intern from The Happy Africa Foundation (THAF) writes all about fundraising for the focal projects during the month of February. Hear straight from her what a success her fundraising efforts have been this month past.

Although February was a short month that didn’t stop us being as busy as ever in St. Lucia! We have had a great time teaming up with African Impact Thanda as well as hosting other events and receiving some amazing donations from some excellent volunteers.

The month started with a THAF breakfast for departing volunteers. This was a lovely way to say goodbye to dedicated volunteers, while raising R250 for the medical projects. 

The following week I spent in Thanda working with their team and volunteers. It was a great experience and very different from St. Lucia (especially as we had cheetah in camp the first night!) 

It was a lovely week but I got straight back into THAF work when I got back to St. Lucia with a yoga event held by David Lawson on a Monday evening. The session was held at the house for staff and volunteers. Ten people attended, making it a very successful event. We raised R300 and split it between David and the projects, meaning that the medical project received another R150. Everyone greatly enjoyed this event and hopefully we will make it a regular activity for the house.

The next weekend, Thanda staff and volunteers descended on St. Lucia for a few days of civilisation. Volunteers teamed up with each other and embarked on a scavenger hunt through the streets of St. Lucia.

One of the winning photos from our scavenger hunt.

Some hilarious pictures were taken as well as some very questionable ones but in the end the “Fearsome Foursome” took the crown. After the hunt we all had dinner at John Dory’s who were kind enough to supply our group with a gift voucher for the winner as well as giving us 10% of our final bill back to put into our projects. 

The whole evening was very special and will definitely become a regular event on both the St. Lucia and Thanda calendars. Overall the event raised R1500 which was split between the two projects.

Along with these great events, we have also been lucky enough to receive some fantastic donations. Education volunteer Shuna arrived in St. Lucia with two huge suitcases full of donations. In partnership with her friends and family she gathered together clothes, toys, medical equipment, arts and crafts and so much more. A big thank you Shuna for this amazing contribution, everyone is extremely grateful. 

We also received 15kgs of baby clothes from new Education volunteer Sarah. This is a great help to us as we were very low on baby clothes and with our new Mother's Support Group gaining members by the week we were worried that we were not going to be able to supply everyone with something, so thank you Sarah for helping us out.

Along with donations and events we have also managed to raise R5400 from incoming donations overseas. It always amazes me how generous people are and I want to say a huge thank you to everyone that has donated this month to our projects, it really does help and everyone here hugely appreciates it. 

If you would like to donate to our projects then please visit www.happyafricafoundation.org and follow the steps to donate. Thank you once again to everyone involved over the past month, it has been great!