Working in an organisation as old as ours has its pros and its cons. One of the pros is the history. A history captured in faded ink on yellowed paper, plaques capturing the age of old buildings, children’s files – the oldest on record dating back to 1917 – black and white photographs of a bygone era. And … the oldest Annual Financial Report on record, dating back to 1968.
It would seem that the maintenance requirements of our buildings were as much a need then as they are now. “Because our houses are fairly old, the cost of maintaining them is always high and this has been an expensive year”. Fast forward 55 years and in our most recent Annual Financial Report our President reports, “Our buildings, which are in the geriatric stage, are in need of constant high care, a costly expense’’.
The 1968 report records an amount of R 4 207 being spent on repairs, whilst in this past year we spent R402 250 – and this figure doesn’t include project funding that we have had to secure outside of our budgeted allocation.
I shudder to think what would become of this place, which many children continue to refer to as home, were it not for the generosity of our longstanding and new donors. Words will never be sufficient to express our gratitude for your willingness to stand with us as guardians of the vulnerable in our country.