Mercy Aids is one of several organizations that the Society Of St Vincent de Paul have been supporting over the years. We recently received a letter from Kay of Mercy Aids thanking us for our support and giving an overview of their year past. As you will read there is still a huge need to help those in need and particularly the children who often have little or no parental guidance.
Gangsterism is beginning to rear it’s ugly head again, a symptom of drugs and alcohol and lack of real employment opportunities.
The following is Kay’s letter to us:-
Dear Mike,
It is hard to believe we are coming to the end of 2020, what a year it has been!
It is a month since our daughter’s wedding in Germany and we still smile every time we think about the fact that we were there for it.
We shopped for the soup kitchens in bulk before we went to Germany and thanks to modern banking and stuff, we were still able to take care of gas and some other emergency needs from far.
The soup kitchens in Fisantekraal that we were involved with were all invited on to training with the Fisantekraal Development Trust and it is hard to believe that that ten-week course finished this past week. Barbara and I were able to listen to their plans and dreams. We have not had to support any community kitchen in Fisantekraal for a while because of the wonderful network of people helping, but it became clear at the presentation that support for kitchens is dwindling, but the need to feed hungry people remains.
We have decided as a team to stay involved with 5 kitchens in Fisantekraal as they fit with the ethos of what it is that we hope to see happen for the vulnerable children around them. We are continuing to take hands with the greater Durbanville network to do some projects together next year to see children at Risk supported in even better ways.
Outside of Fisantekraal we are still the main supporters of 9 kitchens around the greater Cape Town region. A visit to all these kitchens with supplies in the last few days have shown us again that hunger is still a need that these kitchens address.
We have seen an increase of violent crimes directly impacting the kitchens in the last two weeks. One of our kitchen custodians was shot through his left side from a stray bullet and one of our soup kitchens custodians had a young fifteen-year-old die in arms after a gang incident in her area. Please continue to pray for the hearts of the men and women who run these works on the front lines where there seems to be a lot of mental health issues and a rising up of gangsterism again.
Thank you for the part you have played in helping us meet the need in areas at risk in the last month. We are so grateful to still be able to help.
Warm Regards,
