Three Cheers And Thank You So Much St Richards!

Garden Luncheon at the Finns home

On 20 July this year, our UK Mercy Team, once again held their annual garden party to raise money for Mercy House. Mick and Penny Finn host the luncheon, generously offering their beautiful garden (see photo), as the venue. The function was a great success and a very generous donation was sent through with the magic of exchange rate, meaning that it multiplied by about 16! This year it was used to assist with the funding of our final year chemical engineer student, Robert, whose story is given below. Please read an abridged form of the thank you email we sent to our UK friends.

 

Dear Friends

It was great joy to hear that Mick and Penny have again this year offered their beautiful garden for the venue of another annual fund-raiser, the garden party lunch. A very big thank you to you all. St Richards has been a most faithful and reliable supporter for about 22 years, through the initial instrumentality, dedication and enthusiasm of Ms Judy McGregor. It all came about in the most unexpected of ways. My brother, Dennis, who is a dentist, went to work in the UK in 1996. There, at a braai, he met Judy and Gerald, who had moved from South Africa to the UK. My brother and Gerald used to jog together in Durban and so had become friends in their very early years. Whilst chatting at the braai in 1996 Dennis mentioned that his sister had started a home for the young refugees in Johannesburg. Judy immediately said that she would like to get involved in helping. It did not take long before she got other people interested. Parish priest, Father Kieron – with David Rang – even climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to raise as much as R40 000.00 for Mercy House! Subsequent to that they cycled to Lourdes for the same cause! Father Andrew organised two highly successful classical musical evenings… And so the ball started rolling. Since that time, the priests and parish have been marvellously supportive to the extent that Father Andrew even flew out to Johannesburg and spent one jam-packed week getting to know Mercy House. What a privilege that was.

Fr Andrew from St Richards visiting Shadadi, who came to us as an orphan
when he was 7 years old and now works as a clinical medical practitioner at
a rural hospital. Taken March 2014.

St Richards has been our main supporter over the 22 years of our existence. We are deeply grateful for this commitment and extend our sincere gratitude to all at St Richards who have helped us along our way. To quote a modern hymn: “We are pilgrims on a journey, we are brothers on the road, we are here to help each other, walk the mile and share the load.” Thank you St Richards for doing just this.