Some of the children at the orphanage - aren't they beautiful?
Each year, the Stake Relief Society puts on a Women's Conference where there is a keynote speaker, and then several different classes or lectures throughout the morning that the women can go to. Afterwards, a VERY nice lunch is served.
Well, this year, we decided to do something different - a service project. The St. R.S. President - Julie Wood - was able to hook up with Engineers Without Borders, and voila - a project was born. We got in touch with one of the girls that had gone to Uganda to this orphanage, and she came and showed us pictures and told us about the kids at the orphanage. We definitely wanted to make this our project!
The director of EWB told us some that would help, so we decided to make some school kits and bags, some hygiene kits, and some fleece blankets for each of them, as well as get money donated for a corn grinder. We decided that the perfect day to do this project would be the 21st of February.
So, we wanted to get enough money donated to buy them a corn grinder! At our service project, we ended up with over $1400! I was amazed at the number of women that just dropped in 50 or hundred dollar checks! It was so neat to watch that donation bottle fill up, and then count the cash afterwards. We needed $3,000 to buy them a corn meal, and combined with that $1400, plus money that was donated after the project, plus the $600 they already had, we were able to get them their grinder!
Now, let me tell you a little about the orphanage: there are 400 children at the orphanage, ranging in age from babies to about 15 years old. There are ten nuns that run the orphanage. They grow corn, and the children "pay" for their schooling by helping to plant, harvest, and cook the corn. A dormitory was built for the girls last June, but their beds are still bunked three high. The boys sleep on mats on the school room floor.
Their source of nutrition is the corn they grow, plus any fruits they can scrounge around in the jungle for. They take their corn into the local village to get it ground, but it's often mixed with inferior products, or when they come to pick it up, the order is not ready. Oh, and there is NO electricity there, so to sew the kids school uniforms is done by a treadle sewing machine.
We were also able to make the 400 hygiene and school kits, and are currently having the various wards continue sewing the school bags, and cut and tie the fleece blankets. It's amazing how much service and money was given this day, and it's a testimony to me that there are great people out there!
Here are a few pictures of that day! Some of the ladies here stayed the entire four hours cutting and then working to tie the blankets! I did one - ONE (1) - and my fingers were SO sore after that one. I'm amazed at how they just kept going!
Our bag sewing line
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