The Reach For A dream Foundation held its annual Ladies Lunch Fundraiser at Houghton Golf Club on 7 September.
The lunch aims to raise funds to enable the foundation to continue fulfilling dreams of children with life-threatening illnesses.
Bronwyn Feldwick-Davis, marketing and communications manager of the foundation said, “Our intended purpose today is to hopefully raise R200 000. We have many partners and sponsors because we try and get everything sponsored.”
Keynote speaker, former Olympic champion and student Natalie du Toit, said she had been involved with a number of dream-fulfilling missions by the foundation and each time was a special occasion. She said seeing the happy faces of the children made it all worthwhile.
Chairman of the foundation, Mervyn Serebro, who lost two children, one at six months of age, and the other at 23 years of age two years after being diagnosed with cancer, took to the stage and extended his gratitude to the 40 members of staff and more than 200 volunteers.
Serebro shared a story of a child who suffered from renal failure and had a dream of becoming an author. “His dream in terms of writing this book was to understand how books are made. The team arranged for him to visit Penguin Books and they took him through the entire process of how books are made.
“He was given a pile of books to take home and was asked to be the central character of a book they were discussing, and he died a month later.”
Serebro went on to relate another story of a child whose dream was to own a garden, which the organisation was able to create overnight. “We moved very quickly and the next day she walked on the grass and then she died.”
The chairman said despite the pain, the experiences of fulfilling these children’s dreams has left him with a sense of comfort that the children experienced something which to them was unimaginable. He added that their parents would always know the joy that their children experienced and they would have that mental picture in their minds forever.
“My request of you today is to please help us, each of you has the power and the influence to make a difference,” pleaded Serebro.
“You can help us to reach every child who deserves to be in hope who could be lifted out of that place of hopelessness and desperation by either encouraging your colleagues in the office to commit to this really special foundation or to give it your own time or both.”
