EDITOR – Thanks to a generous public response, the crisis God’s Warehouse faced was averted and we were able to continue our operations and provide widowed, single and divorced moms with support, counselling, clothing, food and other supplies. Within two weeks, we raised enough to replace the broken laptop.
Thank you to all who responded with such generosity and to the Berea Mail which published our press release.
Statistically, 48 per cent of South African children live in single-parent households and the vast majority of these children are being cared for by their mothers. Many of these moms (the exact statistics are unavailable) do not receive financial support from the fathers of their children and the maintenance courts are swamped and unable to keep up with the masses of cases against defaulting parents.
Instead of letting these children and their moms slide through the cracks into poverty, God’s Warehouse works to help these moms make ends meet. Raising a child on a single salary is almost impossible and we do not want to see these families become statistics.
Each week, we send out Love Boxes that contain food, basic toiletries and cleaning products. We also collect used clothing, toys, household goods and furniture to distribute to our moms. What we can’t distribute, we sell at markets to help provide for the Love Boxes. The families we help live in Richards Bay, on the North Coast, the Dolphin Coast, Durban, Pinetown, the South Coast, Pietermaritzburg and in the northern interior of KwaZulu-Natal.
We also help moms navigate the legal system as many of them cannot afford attorney fees. We have a number of legal professionals who assist us with advice and we spend many, many hours each month in court helping moms with maintenance issues and divorce proceedings.
There is a lot more which we do and all this is possible because of the amazing support we receive from the public. More can be found on our Facebook page (facebook.com/GodsWarehouse) or at www.godswarehouse.co (there is no za).
We do this for the children and thank you, once again, for helping keep our doors open.
Debbie Schroeder
God’s Warehouse
