Dear Friends,

We are going, for three months, to South Africa and Lesotho to work with a number of different grassroots organizations and with the marginalized population of these countries. We are working with Help Lesotho (www.helplesotho.ca) in a high school helping with a tree planting project. We are also working with Abalimi Bezekhaya, (www.abalimi.org.za) an urban gardening project in the townships of Capetown, planting food and trees. Our family will also distribute food, clothing and school supplies to individuals who are in need, primarily woman and children, many with AIDS or orphaned from the AIDS epidemic.

So, dear community, we are kindly requesting donations. We can take a limited amount of weight on the plane with us and we would like those items to be the most useful items possible: children’s shoes, first aid supplies, books, pencils, coloured pencils, paper, text books, battery powered radios and of course money. With any money that is given to us we promise that every dollar will be used to buy food, seeds or food trees. This will be distributed to women and children in need. It is also our hope to find a community in South Africa that we could partner with our Cortes community for future fundraising efforts.

Thanks to those of you who have already donated items or money, it is unbelievable how quickly people respond. There are drop boxes for items at Manson's Hall (just outside Julians door), Trudes Cafe and the Whaletown Store. If you have a donation of money for us, give us a call and we can arrange to pick it up or you could send it to our post box, 272 in Whaletown before Jan 13th.

With our sincerest thanks and gratitude for this generous and loving island.

In Community,

Lovena, Ryan, Kai, Tosh, and Asha Harvey