the soup run continues!

collecting the soup from the orchard farmstall

blessing the local creche with the lovely warm soup

people are often willing to get involved in helping those in need but are either unable to spare the time or know who to link up with to enable them to do that...and this was the case when a few years ago i chatted to the owner of a local restaurant as we tried to encourage them to get involved with the local community in a tangible way. they didn't want to give money and couldn't spare the time for a visit to see what we were doing at the village of hope, both via the children's unit or our sports outreach however the way they could do this is by committing to making us up a batch of soup which we would transport into the creche in rooidakke as well as iraq informal settlement each and every friday. this worked well for the last few years however our initial suppliers restaurant is due to close for the winter next week so we were left with a bit of a dilemma.

whilst this isn't really part of our main calling towards those infected or affected by HIV, AIDS and TB it does allow us to be a conduit between those that have and those in need, after a few conversations we have been blessed with the provision of soup from the orchard farmstall who have taken up the batten to supply us with this much needed soup for the foreseeable future, and although all we have to do is deliver the soup from their kitchen to the creches in the community it is a wonderful way to see these people gain an extra nutritional meal which will help with their TB medication.

rose and bull doing souper work!

ok i am sorry about the play on words in the title of this post but it happens to be true!

this weeks grabouwer picks up on a wonderful story that we have been involved with for over a year now. every friday a local restaurant at the marsh rose mall, called 'the rose and bull' make up a wonderful pot of soup which we then deliver to one of the soup kitchens that we have relationship with in rooidakker informal settlement.

the work that this soup kitchen (and all the others around our town) does is amazing, not only do they provide a hot meal for literally hundreds of poor and needy people each day, but by providing that food they also enable the ARV (antiretroviral) and TB medication to do it's job properly as much of those meds can't be taken on an empty stomach....

the relationship with the restaurant came whilst we were in the bar watching some sport over a pint, and when asked about the work we were doing in the community it was easy to see how we could encourage them to get involved. the manager of the restaurant was happy to make the soup each friday but had no means or relationship in the community to ensure it got to the right people...the village of hope is just a conduit between the two parties but last week shane (the manager) came to visit the soup kitchen with us and was really touched to see that what he provides really can and does make a difference to hundreds of people.

that is our story, we might not be able to help everyone, and our main call is to help those infected by HIV and AIDS (especially children) but we can bring together those that have with those who have not and then let the relationship develop from there.