On Monday the 27^th Sue Napier from Ireland-Davenport visited us all the way from Johannesburg with a team from their company with a big vehicle loaded with wrapped boxes for the children of our community crèches.  This was the perfect follow up after our workshop at the Centre with the teachers on the Friday before.  The boxes contained lovely surprises for the children such as toothpaste, toothbrushes, face cloths, soap, colouring in books, blocks, crayons, paper and lots more.  Six crèches were blessed in this way, and we enjoyed the day out in the country meeting the children and teachers on their home ground.  Our visitors from Johannesburg were very taken with the lovely views as we drove from crèche to crèche and it struck me how beautiful KZN really is when I saw it through their eyes again.  These young people were really fun to have and it amazed me how even the guys had no problem with picking up the little ones who were crying. It was also very moving to find out that although Ireland-Davenport sponsored most of the boxes each of their employees became so involved that they donated and packed individual boxes and because of that we were able to cover 6 creches instead of the 4 that we had originally worked towards. Thank you so much to Sue and the young people for giving up your time and energy to show such generosity and love for the little ones.

Our happy day with Sue and her team from Ireland-Davenport.

Sipho and I visited two more crèches this week armed with gifts left behind by Sue and her team.

 Kitchen revamp

At the beginning of this year our kitchen cupboards collapsed due to rotting timber and our chairman Peter managed to get some donated cupboards and spent many a happy workday installing them but he was unable to source second hand or donated tops for the cupboards.  We were in a bit of a dilemma but James Fernie from Uthando,(www.uthandosa.org)  South Africa stepped into the breach and funded brand new kitchen tops right around the one side of the kitchen.  As you can see, Mabasi our cook thinks she is quite the lady in her new kitchen.  Thank you, James for your faithful friendship and support over the years and thank you to Peter and Tom for installing everything so beautifully. Another problem ticked off and sorted out.

We will be closing for 10 days around the Easter weekend.  We are all looking forward to the break and I am especially excited because I will be visiting not only my daughter in London for a few days but will be meeting up with Clare and Marc Barton, our dear friends who are running their own NGO called Kwazulu Natal Childrens Aid (www.kwazulunatalchildrensaid.com ) specifically to raise funds for HNO and as you know by now the difference they have made in the past few years has literally kept the doors from closing.  I will be meeting with some of the people who have supported them (and therefore, us) and I am really looking forward to that.

Till April then, God bless

Conny