Bothasig Gardens, an affordable housing development by Communicare, reputed to be the largest non-profit landlord in the Western Cape, had given some proactive residents of the Bothasig Gardens permission to run some community projects. These projects include using a room in the complex as a community centre, creating a vegetable patch, and even creating a football field for the youth.
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These proactive residents are members of the Panorama Ward and brought this project to the attention of ward members, who organized a Mormon Helping Hands incentive to help them complete a number of projects that they had already started in the complex.
In the months prior to the actual Helping Hands event, members of the ward got involved in various activities, including teaching woodworking and even ballroom dancing.
At the request of the community, the project on the 17th of August 2013, included repair work and painting the community hall. In addition, a vegetable patch needed to be cleared, prepared and planted and a football field needed to be cleared.
About two weeks before the event Hein Groenewald of the Bellville Ward kindly brought his tractor in and used his “bossie cutter” to chop down the heavy vegetation.
A week before the event the Panorama Youth had an early evening activity in which they started preparing the vegetable patch.
The culminating event on the 17th began at 9:00 a.m. when 31 of the Panorama Ward members braved the initial cold and rain, but as the weather cleared the number of members helping swelled to 47.
Some primary children and ward families had grown seedlings. Over 300 more seedlings for planting were also arranged by Nathaniel Pike just in case families’ efforts to grow their own did not work out. 30 bags of fertilizer had been arranged by Tracey Benjamin.
The residents kindly prepared sandwiches and an energy drink, and later Rusks and Rooibos Tea.
Comments like these: “We really enjoyed ourselves,” from Andrew Herbert and “We should do this every week,” by Carine Tshiama, show that service can be truly rewarding.