Before coming to volunteer for a year, our marketing manager Silke set up a fundraiser for our organization. She raised almost R27.000 and decided to use that money to renovate the dorms for the children attending our environmental education program.
The dorms were in need of a new lick of paint and some renovations and lots of our volunteers just couldn’t wait to help and get these dorms back into shape! The renovations took quite a few months as we could only really work during the weekends when there were no children sleeping in there, but we are so happy with the final result!
So what was done exactly? Well, we basically stripped everything down and started from scratch. The bathrooms were in most need of renovations so that’s where we started. We got everything off the walls and filled every hole before painting, stripped the old paint and glue off the showers and placed tiles, painted the ceiling and then the floors. New shower heads were installed as well as toilet seats, privacy curtains and curtain rails, towel holders, sinks, clocks and even the two windows in every room got some nice new curtains to keep the light out.
The cherry on top is the new metal bunk beds and mattresses that we were able to buy. We now have room for 6 or 7 kids in each dorm compared to 4 before. They also got new blankets, pillows and comforters to tie the whole room together.
It was a lot of work, but seeing the final product makes everything more than worth it. A big thank you to everyone that helped with these dorm renovations and of course to everyone who donated to Silke’s fundraiser to make this all possible!
Look how good our dorms look now!
