New Year Bounty

It was an ‘Open House’ on the 30th December 2007 when the distribution of the New Year hampers to the chosen families took place. A bounty of food stuff (rice, lentils, sugar, oil, semolina, wheat flour, instant noodles, tomato ketchup, jam, mango juice and biscuits) was packed in a colourful bucket and handed over to the families who were invited to my home. (You might be wondering… ‘…why the bucket?...’ You see, Chennai invariably has a water problem during the summer months and hence the idea of the bucket popped up to enable these people store this precious liquid!). It was a hectic afternoon with the families strolling in and out of my home between 11am to 2pm. New clothes were distributed to the ladies and children and after a satisfying meal, the families left with smiles on their faces. Photographs were taken and will be put up shortly – please excuse the delay. There was one unclaimed hamper and on New Year’s Day, 1 Jan 2008, this was handed over to an orphanage along with 5 kilos of sugar supplied by Anita and Kevin Mawdsley of Chennai.

Whispering Hope would like to thank Pamela Hendricks, her family and friends from Perth, Sharon Gomes and Rebecca Dickson from Melbourne, Alun Long from the UK, P R Balasubramaniam from Mumbai, Alethea Brett and V. Kumar from Bangalore for their spontaneous generosity that made the distribution of new clothes and hampers to the less fortunate possible. We also appreciate the untiring efforts of Lucia in helping with the purchase and sorting of the hampers.