Pretoria - Spiritual Gospel Choir in Atteridgeville has chosen to celebrate this year’s Christmas Day with the needy of Leamogetswe Safety Home in Atteridgeville.
On Friday they will donate essentials to the home as part of the spirit of giving this festive season.
Founder George Mathe, who started the choir in 1985, said the inspiration to give back to the community was part
of the “parenting skills“ that came naturally, as the choir consists of 90% over- 40 year olds – all of whom are parents.
“The choir has 42 members and, as parents, we do not like it when other children suffer while there are things that we can do for them,” said Mathe.
The choir will be donating toiletries for both genders at the home, which has 33 children, 17 of them boys and 16 girls.
“We have also added sanitary towels for the girls and, of course, sweets for them, but the toiletries are more important,“ he said.
The choir has been doing charity work since 2017 and, when they started, they donated mattresses to the homeless in Pretoria.
“About 50 homeless people received the mattress donations. Our goal is to build a place for the homeless, who are everywhere in Pretoria,“ he said.
Mathe said they took the time to research about the places they would be donating to, just to gather information to help them make preparations.
“We firstly identify the number of recipients, the gender, and the ages, so that when we buy gifts, we buy accordingly.
“Normally, we donate clothes, food parcels and toiletries. It all depends on how much money we made over the whole year,” he said.
The choir does not have any sponsorship or partners, but they would like to work with other organisation such as Unicef, Save The Children, and SOS.
Mathe said they had not yet identified organisations that they could partner with in giving back to the community from their area, but they were appealing to the community and the government to lend a helping hand in changing the lives of those who are less privileged.
“We would like to appeal to the government, business owners, and other organisations to help us so that we help other people in need,” he said.
The choir recently made donations to Neo Ya Bana Foundation in Lotus Gardens, where they donated R500 in cash and toiletry gifts.
When they are not donating toiletries, the choir makes music and has five albums to date.
“Our goal is to perform in the US and the UK to introduce this style of singing to the rest of the world,” he said.
Not only do they donate items, but they also offer their time to help the community in making it a better place.
The choir has been doing other community projects such as helping out the community with cleaning up its area.
Pretoria News