Posted:04-February-2022
Making Christmas special, for children without family
The dilemma of the greeting card: should you send them, or should you put the money to a more sustainable use? For many of us, the idea of sending and receiving cards – especially those which can’t be recycled, is not as appealing as it has been in the past. In order to be able to support causes close to their hearts, business owners, Maria & Gerry Burns, made the conscious decision to be more mindful about how they spend money, at Christmas.
Previously, InXpress Milton Keynes, would have sent cards to their customers, which ended-up being thrown away. So, a few years ago, they decided to start donating the money they’d normally spend on cards, instead, and letting customers know what they’d done. As Maria explains, “It started when we wanted to donate Christmas presents to our local children’s hospital – a way to give back after the high-level care they showed to our son, who had been seriously ill, earlier in the year. We wanted to make a difference to the children who would be staying on the ward, during the Christmas period.”
Knowing their donation made a real difference and refusing to go back to the old way of ‘wasting’ money at Christmas, Maria and Gerry continue making donations to causes close to their hearts. “This year, we sent our donation to Die Herberg, a children’s orphanage in South Africa. I’d been speaking to my parents, who live in South Africa – which is where I’m from – and they told me about the orphanage their Church is connected with. The children there have been severely affected by Covid, as well as losing their parents. So, we sent £508, which the InXpress Give Back Committee chose to match. This made it possible for the children to be taken to the beach, where they could enjoy a long-lasting memorable experience.”
Die Herberg is a children’s home providing vulnerable children in South Africa with residential care and developmental programmes, since 1919. It started in 1918, when too many children lost their parents to the Flu epidemic. Today, around 122 babies and children, call Die Herberg home. Little wonder people like Maria and Gerry are stirred to find ways to support these children through the current pandemic. “Many of them have lost both of their parents, or their parents gave them up because they can’t afford to keep them. Christmas is supposed to be about family, so for InXpress to have made it possible for the children and staff to enjoy their Christmas… really pulls on the heartstrings. When I saw the photos of them enjoying their day at the beach, we knew we’d done the right thing.”
To find out more about the orphanage, please visit their website.
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