Hundreds of handmade gifts: From Oumas, With Love

A room filled with all kinds of warm, fuzzy, funny and creative artefacts made with love by senior citizens from every corner of the Free State province. The Pretty Things for Little Things, a campaign by Shoprite and Age-In-Action, is back again for the 13th year running. The provincial leg of this competition has recently been held at the Dutch Reformed Church Fauna.
In case you’ve never heard about the campaign, it’s a national competition where entrants are challenged to use their natural talents to warm a child’s heart while standing a chance to win generous prizes for themselves. Although anyone can enter the challenge, only senior citizens who are 60 years and above qualify for the prizes.
The campaign, which was founded in 2003, has managed to donate over 160 000 items of toys, blankets and other items to underprivileged children.
This initiative is meant to encourage customers, especially senior citizens, to put their creative talents to work by making clothes and toys for children of disadvantaged communities. Every item made is valuable as it will be given to a child who may have never had a toy, blanket or item of clothing before.
Three winners per category are selected in each province. The provincial winners each receive vouchers to the value of R2000, R1500 and R1000 for first, second and third places respectively. National winners receive vouchers to the value of R5000, R3000 and R2000 for the top three positions respectively. The vouchers can be used at any Shoprite, Checkers or Checkers Hyper store across the country. – Pulane Choane
pulane@centralmediagroup.co.za