Dear Friends of Golden Sunbeams
December is traditionally always very turbulent here! But this year it’s turbo-turbulent!
We organised so many Christmas surprises, packed presents, baked cookies, celebrated, gave presents and sang.
The many “Jingle Bells” and “We wish you a merry Christmas” are still ringing in our ears… But again from the beginning!
In our November Newsletter, we already described the many activities we were planning for Christmas this year.
It started with our Christmas party at the Sikuthale Pre-Primary School in the Asanda Village township. There we celebrated again with around 100 girls and boys. Santa Claus was much smaller this year than last year, but no less effective.
The enthusiasm for the gift bags that were filled with toys and sweets was huge again.
The mother of all Christmas celebrations and the undisputed highlight of December is our big Golden Sunbeams pool party in the gardens of Mondeor Restaurant in Somerset West.
On Thursday, December 8th at 10h00 it was that time again: almost 100 children from the Helderberg Golden Sunbeam and Kingdom-Kids Kindergarten met and it didn’t take even 10 minutes for the first ones to splash in the large pool and while the garden was filled with childrens’ happy laughter.
The children from the townships of Macassar and Sir Lowry’s Pass enjoyed the big jumping castle, jungle gym, swings, slides, see-saws, the delicious food and to top it all off, the irresistible ice cream!
This year, finally, many “big guests” could come again, who played with the children, ate together, talked and exchanged experiences.
Sabine and Thomas, who surprised our kindergartens in April of this year with magical Easter biscuits – we reported on them in our Newsletter # 37 of 21 April – transformed their house into a Christmas bakery with the scent of cinnamon and cardamom. Hundreds of reindeer, rocking horses, Christmas trees and little angels, lovingly painted and wrapped, were distributed to all children at our Christmas party. The children hardly dared to eat the little works of art – they were so perfect and flawless.
We don’t want to keep this little story from you either: In the past we have reported several times about Jörn-Erik’s sponsorship of the twin children Liza and Liam and their friend Nazeem. The three children who were formerly at our kindergarten, Helderberg Golden Sunbeam, have been attending Primary school for two years and Jörn-Erik has not been able to see them for several years. This year he was able to hug the three of them again and everyone was happy about the long-awaited reunion.
Vicky Roper, the founder of the CHEAFRICA Foundation (on the right) was pleased that she was able to meet the principal Zelna Cupido (on the left) from the Kingdom Kids Edu-Care Centre and exchange ideas with her about current projects.
Bernd Holtkamp was happy to see one of his first children from the Helderberg Golden Sunbeam kindergarten again. Abrahameshia Manuel Daniels (on the right) was still a baby at the time and now successfully runs a kindergarten in Sir Lowry’s Pass.
And Britta Belz is happy that Carla Walther (on the left in the picture), who is currently visiting Britta in South Africa and supporting her projects as a volunteer, is with her.
Patricia van der Westhuizen (www.travel2volunteer.co.za) came with all the volunteers to celebrate with the children. With the hot temperatures, they were also happy to be able to cool off a little in the pool.
At around 14h30, our coveted Christmas surprise bags and home-baked Christmas biscuits were distributed.
And then packed with Christmas biscuits, Christmas bags and swimming rings and water sprayers sponsored by Santa Claus, they went back to their townships in the bus. An unforgettable day that we and the children look forward to for a whole year.
One day later on 9 December, we visited our kindergarten Bright Future Edu-Care Centre in the township Asanda Village to distribute more bags filled with delicious Christmas biscuits with our biscuit maker Sabine and our volunteer Carla.
A different kind of Christmas help: school supplies for around 35 children at Covenant Kids. The principal of the kindergarten, Chrizell, sent us an email thanking the parents: “On behalf of Covenant ECD parents thank you so much for this generous donation. Our parents are totally in tears when I broke the news today. Thank you Golden Sunbeams.”
It’s time to say thank you once again! Thanks to all supporters, patrons, sponsors, friends! On behalf of our children and kindergarten teachers, we would like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all the small and large donations that we can use to implement the projects here on site. We are grateful for each donation and look forward to your continued support in the future.
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a good start to a happy, healthy and peaceful 2023!
Best regards
Britta & Bernd
PS: Are you still looking for a sustainable Christmas present? Then take a look at our website: https://www.goldensunbeams.org/de/spenden-mitgliedschaft-ehrenamt/