Know your neighbour: Karen Harvey of Chic Mamas Do Care Jozi reflects on her stay in Linden
One local shares some of the aspects she will miss about this community as she immigrates.
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This is Karen Harvey, she has been a volunteer at the Linden-based charity shop, Chic Mamas Do Care Jozi.
As she sets her sights on immigrating to Oceania soon, she reflects on what she will miss most about the small, but amazing community she has been part of.
Charity work has been part of her soul, even before she started volunteering at the organisation about six years ago. However, if she isn’t helping the community in ways she can, she is creating something. Whether it’s upcycling furniture, painting, gardening, crocheting, or scrapbooking.
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Harvey’s wish is to leave a footprint of love and kindness to one another, “To strangers, to the earth, to those less fortunate and to have made a difference in people’s hearts and lives.”
This idea gently eases into what she loves about Linden. For her this community is a colourful one, that is home to different personalities and great entrepreneurial spirit. “I will miss Linden. My mom and aunt have lived here for 49 years, so for me, this community feels like home,” she said. Adding that she will for sure miss the sense of belonging.
She also loves that Linden is a community-based area, where people are mindful of shopping local. “They are incredibly supportive of businesses and NPOs in the area. I love people’s mindfulness of reusing, reducing, and recycling. I find people go ‘the extra mile’ in so many ways, small and big.”
Leaving the country for her is not an easy thing to do by any stretch of the imagination, “Having said that, I am grateful and trusting to be used for a meaningful purpose. I am also looking forward to a time of rest which is unlike my personality,” said Harvey.
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