Spreading the Christmas joy
Santa's little helpers, the women from the Fuchsia Women's Agricultural Union (WAU) visited the West Rand Association for Persons with Disabilities in Oatlands, to spread the Christmas spirit.
With Christmas just around the corner, it is only fair that the gift of giving be shared with everyone and no person is left behind. That is what the 10 dedicated and kind women of the Fuchsia Women’s Agricultural Union (WAU) strive for.
Upon visiting the West Rand Association for Persons with Disabilities in Oatlands, the women were welcomed by the residents with smiles, joy and laughter.
Krugersdorp West WAU liaison officer Estelle Olivier said, “My day becomes brighter when I see these things happening”.
Since the women only meet once a month, each one had an opportunity to share events that have been happening in their individual lives. A tear was shed here and there but all around the general feeling was pure happiness. Jetta Visagie opened the meeting with a prayer from a poem book, “I just thought it was beautiful and I wanted to share it with you”, Jetta said to the women.
Starting the Christmas gift giving, the women each had to contribute to a box, there were 35 residences that needed to be catered to, “We received a basic list of things that we can put in the Christmas Box and you could add whatever you wanted. Things like they would need daily.” said Estelle.
This is the first time since the pandemic that the women were able to start the Christmas gift boxes, “This is the first time that the residences will be receiving their first ever Christmas boxes, as we wanted to start this initiative before the pandemic started,” said Estelle.
These boxes contained:
• Cookies
• Snacks
• Underwear
• Socks
• Tissues
• Beanies
• Perfume (for the women)
A total of 35 residents from the West Rand Association for Persons with Disabilities were gifted with these boxes. The Fuchsia branch had also started a new campaign “It’s the first time we have ever started this project,” said chairperson of the union, Maryna van der Merwe.
“We tried to gather 10 000 bread tags, however, we were only able to raise 7 140 bread tags”, said Maryna. This part of the bread for tags initiative, where collecting approximately 5 000 bread tags/200 kg of tags equals one wheel chair.
Giving the gifts away was as Maryna said, “a beautiful thing to see”, as she calls every name to receive their gift it was clear that each resident felt the love and truly appreciated the gift where some did not want to part with them . Not even for a split second. The gift giving did not end there, the women also gathered 27 sanitary pads for women at the WRAPD center as well as 25 sanitary pads for Laerskool Rapportryer.
