Activities at the Southern Sun Ridgeway, Lusaka are reaching near frenzy as already two major charity events have been concluded in this month of December, with the third and most exciting activity just around the corner.
December kicked off with a food and Nederburg Wine pairing evening, with a professional sommelier flying to Lusaka from Cape Town to present the evening. The evening was sold out and individuals and company's ensured that the funds raised during the event for Action for Children Zambia would truly support the initiative and produce a wonderful Christmas party with individualised gifts for all the resident children at the home near Makeni.
It is the vision of Action for Children – Zambia to 'bring street children back into family life within the community. The desire of the organisation, amongst others, is to succeed in getting children permanently off the street, to achieve moral readiness, receive appropriate education and placements in the work place so that, as adults, they are then independent of continued donor funds and able to take care of their own and their family needs.
'It has always been our policy', says Adrian Penny, Southern Sun Ridgeway's charismatic and generous General Manager, 'to step up our already active social responsibility programme at this time of the year and support worthy organisations through extra efforts and special fund-raising initiatives'.
Through a further effort on the 10th December, a wonderful Xmas fundraising evening with excellent food, wonderful entertainment and enormously generous guests, dreams of around 600 children were realised again this year. Over K90,000,000 was generated. The recipients will be Old MacDonald's Farm as well as 55 children in the nearby compound, Kasisi Orphanage, Tico Community School, My Father's House Orphanage, UTH Children's Burns Unit and Tache Children's Home. Funds ensure that a festive Christmas meal with gifts for everyone will be available at the different organisations, and the funds will also contribute towards school fees for 2012.
The cherry on the cake for the Southern Sun Ridgeway team is on Christmas day, the 25th December where 150 children from Children's Concern, Sister Edna and Vision of Hope orphanages will be bussed in to the hotel to be greeted as VIP's, treated to a full Christmas lunch and each child then receives an individually selected gift and labelled with the name of each child. Staff of the Southern Sun Ridgeway contributes 10% of their Christmas Bonuses for this function and assist with wrapping the gifts and hosting this heart-warming event.
'This truly is the season for giving' smiles Adrian, 'and we at the Southern Sun Ridgeway see this as a privilege to give back to the neediest in our community during a time when everyone should have something special to brighten up their day.'