Caroline Gives in May

I really struggled when it was my turn to give – I wanted to give the money to a woman who begged on the Jan Smuts/Empire Road intersection with her baby, but for the whole month that I had the money, she wasn’t there – and I had no way to find her. And then I wanted to give the money to a home based care organisation who’s board I sit on, but at the board meeting that month, they proposed that board members should provide the petty cash for the organisation monthly, a proposal that none of the board members were happy with, so that giving the donation would have sent a signal that we might be open to persuasion. In the end, I thought about what would make things easier for women in impoverished circumstances and decided that I wanted to fund a day care centre. A charity called the Gumboots foundation supports a day care centre in Alexandra that let’s women go out to work knowing their children are safe, so I donated the money to them.

(caroline is pictured, shorty after she shaved her hair off for CANSA :-)
You can find more information about the Gumboots Foundation here: http://www.gumboots.org.za/