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Thursday June 10, 20109th Annual Chip'n For Children Charity Golf Tournament! Savannah Golf Links, Cambridge Ontario. Shotgun start 1:00 p.m. followed by a Steak dinner at 6:30 p.m. Sponsored by D.A. Kurt Insurance Brokers Inc. |
Chip'n for Children routinely supports Independent Education within your community. This year's beneficiaries will be Foundation Christian School and Autism Ontario. Shotgun start at 1:00pm, Steak Dinner to follow. Sponsorship options are available. Team registration, as well as individual golfers are welcome! Get the 2010 Golf Package, or contact Melissa at 519-579-5440 or by email at melissa@kurt-ins.com to register or discuss sponsorship opportunities. You may also fax your completed registration to: 519-579-0193 Attention: Melissa.
Foundation's Foster Grandparents Program
The setting African sun casts an eerie glow on the dusty road leading away from the village. The journey ahead will be long, arduous and, for some, deadly. Bound together by blood or a common will to survive, the 2,000 or so Sudanese from the Nuer tribe are forced to flee from the only home they have ever known. They leave behind what remaining family is left after a brutal civil war that saw acts of unspeakable cruelty, torture, rape, mutilation and slaughter. They speak little but think many lonely thoughts.
What lies ahead? Who will help? How will they make a living, feed their families, clothe their children? Where to go? Where to turn? How can they forget the past horrors? These proud, beautiful people with quiet souls traverse the mine-field that has become their country. Behind every bush could be a murderer. Around every corner is danger.
Roughly ten percent of the original 2,000 reach the refugee camp in Ethiopia, many kilometers from their village in Malakal. Ambushes, disease, dehydration and starvation claimed most of the tribe. Those that arrived at the refugee camp had no idea this would be their home for the next 5 to 10 years. Marriages took place, children were born, and others died. Waiting became the pastime second only to survival.
What were they waiting for? They waited for a chance at a new life in a new land. Canada became that second chance. This area has sponsored thousands of Sudanese refugees. Most came to this country with literally only the shirts on their backs. They arrived to not only a new culture, but a new language, values, climate and lifestyle.
They have adapted. They do the best they can to integrate into North American society. They have children—many children—to repopulate the tribe. In South Sudan alone, over one-million children died as a result of the Civil War since 1983. One million children.
The Sudanese understand persecution. Their Christian faith and their ethnicity subjected them to horrors we can never imagine. They are compelled to share their faith in and the mercy of God to their children.
Some Sudanese desire a Christian education for their children but lack the resources to provide one. They also mourn the loss of the extended family. They lost a relationship considered vital in their culture: that of Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles.Foundation can help provide some Sudanese with both! We have begun a ministry, an intergenerational initiative to match Sudanese children with sponsors. We have begun a bursary for those that wish to attend our school. It is our hope this is not strictly a financial sponsorship, although donors can certainly remain anonymous if desired. We hope that by sponsoring a child's education, you will consider becoming a friend to that child as well.
Prayerfully consider whether you are in a position to help these refugees. You may not be able to travel to Africa to help those in need, but you may be in a position to help Africans in your own back yard. Contact Christine Hursh for information on how to start your sponsorship of a Sudanese child or family.
In the News
- September 17, 2008 - Community News Kitchener reporting on Foundation's Sudanese sponsorship program.
- The non-denominational Foundation Christian School in Winterbourne has begun a pilot project that will benefit Sudanese children living in Kitchener. The project, dubbed "The Foster Grandparents Program" will allow 15 children from four Kitchener Sudanese families to attend the rural school...
- May 26, 2007 - The Woolwich Observer reports on the Golf Tournament (page 20) and Foundation track and field athletes (page 22).
- A Winterbourne squad's inaugural run at a southern Ontario track-and-field competition has set a benchmark for future meets. One silver and numerous fourth-, fifth- and... Click to go to the archives.
- December 9, 2006 - Christmas parade photos in the Woolwich Observer.
- December 2, 2006 - The Woolwich Observer reports on the formation of the Winterbourne Recreation Association.
- September 16, 2006 - Foundation's opening in the Woolwich Observer.
- Winterbourne hears school bells again...
- September 2, 2006 - The Woolwich Observer reports on our meeting with Woolwich council prior to the Rock 'n Roast.
- The new group that's preserved the educational legacy of the old Winterbourne Public School got a warm welcome at Woolwich council this week...
- August 3, 2006 - The Record runs a story about Foundation.
- A private Christian school will open this fall in the historic Winterbourne Public School building... (subscribers only).
- July 28, 2006 - Foundation is featured in the Woolwich Observer.
- The vacant former Winterbourne Public School will hear the familiar sounds of school children again this fall...
- July 21, 2006 - A press release announcing our opening day.
- September 5, 2006 will be an exciting day for the staff, students ...