AS you make the turn into 85 River View Drive in Crestholme, you are greeted by towering trees that line a short, dirt driveway that also happens to be dotted with the cutest positive signs every few metres.
It is difficult not to feel a sense of awe and wonder as you make your way onto the property that houses the Crest Community Center as it is married with a stunning vista of Inanda Dam and a sense of calm only Mother Nature can provide.
Humble beginnings
The Heartstrings Community Project, a registered non-profit organisation, was started seven years ago by the endearingly positive couple, Michael and Paula Strydom.
Before they followed their calling to help empower and uplift others, Paula was a pre-school teacher and an adventure guide and was then predominantly at home with the children.
Michael -or Mike, as he is better known- worked at a large IT company as a senior software developer.
He left the world of coding behind to help those in need with his loving wife.
The couple said that not many people know how much they cried during the first few months of launching the initiative all those years ago.
“It’s hard going into a shopping centre, standing in an aisle with tears in your eyes because you can’t afford the peanut butter on the shelf. Or eating porridge three times a day. It was important for us to go through that and to understand how fragile, how weak our personal security systems. Our children didn’t have Christmas and, as a family, we needed to know what it felt like. It has been a real faith journey,” said Mike.
Even during their toughest moments, when the organisation was still in its infancy, and to ensure they kept their promise, they sold items from their home to help raise enough funds to build a classroom for a creche in the area.
Empowerment
On site you can find the Livingstone Nursery, with the most colourful variety of succulents and cacti at ridiculously low prices; a tea garden that is open on Wednesdays and, on Saturdays, sells gluten-free chocolate and carrot cake; a book shop; the Calico Clothing store, a way to help fundraise and support marginalised and abused women and create employment; as well as a large variety of wooden goodies that are made at the on-site woodworking workshop.
The project’s other goal is to connect heartstrings.
“It’s really about reaching the people in front of us who are in need in many ways,” said Paula.
From the organisation’s community kitchen, they help support families with food hampers and hearty, cooked meals.
“We take food and go and minister to the people in the streets in Durban to those right on our doorstep.”
During the midst of the global lockdown in South Africa, the duo distributed between two to three tons of food per week to local families.
“We are not afraid to be in the front lines,” said a determined Paula. “We want to help people in whatever way we can.”
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The NPO has also started to look at bringing in local artisans from the surrounding community and add their unique and high quality work to the shelves in the store.
Everything on the property has been produced on site or has been donated and revitalised.
“We try and recycle as much as possible by using pallet wood, to be as gentle on the environment by using eco-friendly goods, or things that can be reused and repurposed,” said Mike.
To help those who have fallen between the cracks, they also opened Crest Haven, a sanctuary for women who are going through a difficult time in their lives.
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“The heart there is that we work a lot with people who are on the street and this is to try and help people before they get there,” said Paula. “The idea is to help people move forward, to see them grow and give them a place to be with something positive to focus on, rather than allowing the negativity and doubt to creep in.”
Current achievements and future hopes
The couple has created an open air facility that exudes calm and serenity.
Their hope is to create a landmark in Durban that becomes a place where the community can gather.
“It’s a place of quiet, a place to find sanctuary and peace. People enter as a stranger and they leave as a friend,” said Mike.
Show your support
In-kind donations of non-perishable foods, good quality second-hand clothing as well as unblemished books.
If they do receive donations of goods that cannot be used on site, they will be given to people and organisations who can use them.
“The reality is that everything still needs finances to run. Finances are a big help. From once-off to small, monthly contributions. We really do live on faith and prayer,” said Paula.
All of the organisation’s fundraising elements are open from 9am to 4pm from Monday to Friday.
To see the extent of the work done by the NPO, follow its Facebook pages: Heartstrings Community Project, Heartstrings Trading Co, Calico HEART Clothing and Livingstone Nursery.
Caxton Local Media Covid-19 reporting
