An appeal for the support of the greater Makhanda Community with a mass clean-up of the St Philips Anglican Church and grounds in Fingo Village. The clean-up takes place this Saturday morning 6 April 2019, 8:30am – 4pm.
The mass clean-up is the first stage of a humble partnership between The Grahamstown Project and St Philips Church. The medium-term objective is to transform the church and grounds into a Tourism Site. The partnership has been agreed with Revd Gwen Mvula (working with her Parish Council) and has the blessing of Bishop Ebenezer. This project is a sister initiative to what we have been doing at Oatlands Park.
In the very short-term we are having a mass clean-up of the site this Saturday but the partnership includes ongoing cleaning and beautification of the site.
A festival atmosphere is planned for Saturday. The church will be open and people are encouraged to pop in, provide some labour, donate black bags, enjoy the church, have something to eat etc.
We would appreciate any support you can provide. There are various ways in which groups and individuals can contribute to the clean-up:
- Physical labour for all or part of the day.
- Donations to purchase goods and services required for the day.
- Supply of black bags and gloves.
- Loan of tools and equipment such as spades, rakes, wheelbarrows, brush-cutters, clippers etc.
- Use of bakkies, trailers, skips etc to remove the rubbish collected.
- Provision of signage to dissuade people from using church grounds as dump-site.
- Education on recycling, composting, and reduction of one-time-use-plastics.
- Demonstration / production of Eco-Bricks.
If you are able to help with any of the above for this Saturday I would be most grateful. All contributions will be appropriately acknowledged. Simimilar requests have been sent to Makana Revive!, Rotary, PnP, SAC/DSG and Makana Municipality.
To conclude. Oatlands Park and St Philips Church are more than just clean-up projects. They are intended as beacons of hope. Examples of what can be done when diverse communities cooperate peaceably for mutual benefit. Working models of what can be done across our precious little City.