20th Celebration Late Night Shopping

We had a really successful late night shopping event last night in celebration of the charity's 20th Birthday! There was a fantastic turnout of regular customers and volunteers, who all enjoyed a glass of fizz with their shopping, and snapped up bargains from our specially selected range of autumn clothing. The raffle was a great success, making over £75.

We also had a fun and informal fashion show, with brave volunteers acting as models. We made over £300 on the night, which will help to fund our projects in Romania.

Thanks to everyone who came along and helped to make the night so memorable. Thanks also to the volunteers who worked so hard to make the night so successful.

Ann

Donating Vegetables

Did you know that you can also donate vegetables?

As part of our plant sales initiative we have decided to trial the donation and selling of local vegetables and fruit.

The idea is that any local producer who has a glut of produce can donate them to us, we display the items and, for a donation, people can obtain locally produced fruit and vegetables. This not only provides a small income for the charity, prevents waste but enables local people to obtain resonably priced produce.

At the moment it is working very well and we have received peas, beans, cucumbers, marrows, tomatoes and apples. Please come and see what we have on a Friday the items are displayed outside near the plants.

We have teamed up with Hassocks Transition Group info@hkdtransition.org.uk and they have been very supportive of our initiative.

Don't forget that during the Autumn weeks, while you are working in your garden, to pot up any self seeded seedlings and clumps you are splitting and donate them to us. It is very helpful if they can be nicely potted and clearly labelled. I am quite good at identifying plants but sometimes I am stumped by a green mass handed in in a plastic bag!
Happy gardening.

Volunteers' Tea Party

On 16th July, Humanity at Heart's volunteers had a lovely tea party at a local garden centre in Ditchling. It was a great way of thanking all of our volunteers, who do a brilliant job keeping the shop running, and helping us to raise the income which ensures our projects in Romania can continue to develop and help the very poorest communities.
We have a large team of over 25 volunteers who work in our Hassocks shop. They help with all aspects of the shop, including window design and displays, customer service, sorting and pricing clothes, books and bric-a-brac. We even have our own invaluable handyman.












Thanks to everyone who came.
Ann

"Recycle and Remake" promotion in our shop

On August 6th, we will be having a special promotion in the shop, to show what can be done with a little ingenuity to make something fantastic out of someone else's rubbish.
We have a number of very talented volunteers who have all worked hard to produce a selection of lovely things for us to sell in our shop, including cake stands, bunting, door stops, customised clothes, jewellry, painted horsehoes, bags, cushions and quilts.

The promotion is designed to highlight our commitment to recycling, to actively encourage people to bring us their donations, and to add interest to the shop. Hopefully, people will see that we are glad to accept donations of anything - as even if clothes or textiles are unsaleable, we can use them in some other way.

We also get an income from selling "rag" and we are trying to publicise this, so that people never have to throw away any textiles,shoes or bags.So,please come into the shop on Friday 6th August and have a look at all the lovely things we have for sale. We hope that we can run the promotion for a couple of weeks.



A lovely little skirt made from Denim jeans and floral fabric.




A necklace, that has a matching bracelet made from buttons, threaded on elastic.

Plant Volunteer

Although I am very pleased that Julie has now got a job it does mean that I have lost my plant volunteer! The plants sales are proving very effective at raising extra funds at our shop in Hassocks and I have a lovely selling venue for them. Unfortunately it can be quite a lot of ( pleasant) work and I really do not have the time. If anyone who loves gardening can offer a few hours please get in touch. The time commitment is very flexible.

Achievements in Romania

We have had a lovely email from Romania telling us about the successes achieved by some of the students who come to the Homework Club. The local junior school, No 2 issues certificates to the pupils who have done well over the year. Several of our children have received these certificates showing what they can achieve with a little extra help and encouragement .
Pictured right is Alex proudly showing his certificate.
Another recent activity is the celebration of Children Day. All the children took part in the fun and games put on by the staff and volunteers, at the end of the day they were able to take home armfuls of gifts donated by the Liberal Students Club. Pictured left, Bobo with his toys.
Pictured right is everyone with their gifts.

Adina, the Centre Manager along with the staff from the Joshua Centre, is working hard with us in the UK to put together new projects that will help and support families and the elderly in the community. It is great to see the achievements of the children and we fully intend to become more involved with other members of the colony.

The coffee mornings have started again, and we are using this forum to meet and get to know local people in a friendly and informal setting.

April Trip to Romania

I have just come back from Romania and am eager to tell you all that has been happening. I spent most of my time in Petrosani where our main project The Joshua Community Centre is situated and, amongst other things, I spent 3 days with the new manager Adina putting into place new structures and projects. She is very eager to learn and we hope she stays with us.
Pictured: Joshua Centre staff and volunteers, together with our friends Ken and Katy from Vis De Copil, plus HAH Trustee Dave Bennett, and Michelle.

I spent all Friday volunteer training, this included lunch so it was a great day. The morning was with our own staff, which went very well and the afternoon was with a variety of volunteers, this was more complex due to it all having to be translated. As volunteering is so new in Romania this type of training is very valuable. Vis de Copil who we support in Arad has indicated they would also like this type of training.
I ran a sewing workshop in the evenings to which some of the staff, volunteers and two local ladies came. It went extremely well, the atmosphere was relaxed and everyone enjoyed it very much. The photo, left, shows the group. We even had one of our homework club boys attend! I ran this workshop for Vis de Copil for the ladies from poor families and it was a great success there as well. On returning to England I have sent out work sheets and further information with a hope that the sewing clubs will keep going.

I spent time with Julien and Gabi who run Provedina Devina in Petrilla, we have given them funds to pay for food parcels for the elderly, and as well as some training with them I was able to visit two of the ladies. What a shock to see Sanzania, pictured right, in a block of flats that really should be demolished. She has bad legs and spends most of her time in bed watching the TV. A volunteer George, from the same block visits her and takes the food parcel and she is particularly grateful for the sugar! I also visited Maria who lives on her own in a nearby village and although she is able to dig her garden she really needs extra help and support.

While I was in Petrosani I was approached by two different groups asking for help and advice on how to set up and run a support group for parents of children with special needs. I was really happy to be able to show them the first steps and look forward to working further with them; in this respect we will be linking with the Clinical Science & Education Foundation which is doing similar work in Cluj. I feel that my time is well spent in Romania, not only training and information gathering at the Joshua Centre but helping and supporting other indigenous groups. Now that people have a better understanding of what they can achieve in their communities, training and support have an even greater value.

Michelle