Candle Fundraiser for an Orphanage Sightseeing Trip
by Susan Baldrey
(India)
We are a group of friends and we do alot of fund raising functions for orphanages, in our home land.
Me, being an orphan myself, know the heart's desire of being wanted and loved. I spend all my free time with the orphanage run by nuns. The same nuns that brought me up.
We have fundraisers of old clothes, cd's, dvds, shoes, food products, etc. We had never done candles but this past christmas, we actually had a candle fund raiser organised by us and we gave out leaflets, announced it in the church, and by word of mouth. We also made the orphans to take part and since a few of my friends had done the candle making course, we thought it the best fund raising idea.
We all put our ideas and money together and with the objections from any angle we started much in advance as we had sorted the date for the 23rd december, we made candles in the shape of animals, santa, lanterns, a crib, jesus, mary, joseph, sheeps, cows, etc. Also we made of the few orphan children and we placed them in a group and we wrote our few thoughts on each one.
On the final day, we thought that it will be a failure as god really tested us by sending down the rain, we became so depressed and sad, and cried to god, why are you doing this, you do not want these orphan children to have their sightseeing trip, believe it or not, the skies cleared, the sun showed its face and it turned out to be such a wonderful day, the hall was packed we had no room, but every article was sold, the snacks we prepared to sell out went out so fast and we were left with only the empty table counters, and a smile on our faces.
Our collection for that day was an unbelievable amount of rupees seventy three thousand, five hundred and forty two, and fifty paisa. (Rs.73,542.50). And to make things better, a gentle man who owns a tour and travel agent, offered his bus services for free for the orphanage and the trip.
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