Master Builders step up and make a difference

MASTER Builders handed over a newly renovated crèche to Give a Child a Family in Margate last Thursday.

Give a Child a Family is an organisation which provides short term holistic care to orphaned and vulnerable children. GCF provides children with a home, counselling and early child development.

Master Builders carried out renovations and alterations to an existing crèche which had become too small and outdated for the children’s needs.

Master Builders involvement in community projects on the South Coast began in 2009, when it was approached by the Hibiscus Coast Municipality to get involved in a community project in Gamalakhe.

Hans Stols, the area manager of Master Builders, and the regional chairman at the time, Ray Basson, rallied members together and were able to help a struggling family of two orphaned teenagers by providing them with a home. From then on it became an annual tradition.

This year saw the group host a charity sale of unused building materials to raise funds for the 2013 community project activities. The event raised R35 000.

The team also took part in other projects such as installing pumps at a borehole to provide Mcushwa Secondary, and a neighbouring school, with water.

The borehole belonged to a local chief who granted permission to install the borehole pumps with tanks, which will also serve the greater community.

On this project Rotary provided R38 000 which covered the cost of most of the equipment needed to complete the project.

The group is currently working on building a school for children with autism in Port Shepstone.

The team has allocated material, as well as money for payment for labour, for what will be the first South Coast facility for autism. Work on this project started at the beginning of November and is scheduled for completion in mid December this year.

The aim of this project is to create a facility that will take at least 20 students.