sand, paint and colour our world!

Description 

POPUP focuses on upliftment through life skills training and skills development as well as support services, including medical services. The goal of POPUP is to alleviate suffering, uplift the community, change people's destiny and ultimately work towards the ideal of transforming the city.

The organisation needed the assistance of volunteers to sand down and repaint their containers. Currently 45 - 50 children would benefit from the project, and on completion of the new facility 100 children will benefit.

The AVI team  Fareed Sultan - Snackworks Steven Hayes - Snackworks Alession Turrisi - Snackworks Peter Adamson - Snackworks Caryn Jones - Snackworks Joyce Spronk - Snackworks Luigi Ferrini - Snackworks Faith Dube - Snackworks Anele Sikuza - Snackworks Wilma Jendrosch - Snackworks Nwabisa Mjika - Spitz Audrey Moleko - Spitz Mpume Nene - Spitz

Feedback from the project

This was the day of the pouring rain. What was supposed to be "Sand, paint and color our world" had to change into "Find a way to save the day", and did they ever!!

Firstly the 15 volunteer enthusiasts had to clean out the PRO office that had turned into a store room during the last months. It was painted and for the first time since I joined POPUP (7 years ago) that office is something to be proud of.

Every Thursday we receive food from Woolworths that is close to expiry or damage products and it is quite a process to sort and clean everything. Many extra hands made it much easier.

Every three months POPUP has an "Aftercare Day" for old learners that completed the skills training courses. A lot of preparation goes into this day. Boxes with donations had to be moved from the first floor to be used on Saturday. Chairs had to be put into place, parcels made up and gifts wrapped for a lucky draw. With the help of the volunteers we saved a lot of time and surely it was a job well done!

In our waiting area in front of reception, we constantly have a problem with not enough chairs for people to sit on. Although we have some chairs that can work there, they were not looking that good and we first had to fix them. The first step was sanding and the willing hands of the volunteers again made the difference!

For the "Crazy Christmas gifts" we want to use for our Christmas card, they had to paint some boxes. The paint we had for that was very old, too thin and they had to give it several layers, working in a very small space where people need to pass all the time. But it put no restriction on them; they made it work anyway... 

The volunteers were amazing, nothing, not even the rain could dampen their spirits, they came to our organisation ready to work, and work they certainly did! A big heartfelt THANK YOU to all the volunteers and management/staff of AVI, you are truly making a difference!