Each of the four days, a new cohort of 15 Northwood Grade 9 learners brought loads of youthful enthusiasm and energy to the grounds of their near neighbour, The Domino Foundation. Armed with pots of paint and brushes, garden forks and shovels, they set about their to-do list for their Community Connect Week, joining with 240 of their peers who were involved in similar outreaches at 15 other organisations. There was no sense of compulsory labour about their sprucing up the NPO’s storage facility or planting spekboom plant after spekboom plant to fill the empty spaces left after building operations at the Babies’ Home – it was all undertaken with quantities of boyish cheerfulness and noise. One participant in the light-hearted labour described their time with the NPO as “fun with a focus”.
Member of staff, Suzanne Witthoft, talked of why Domino had been chosen: “Being so close to their offices has made it easy to partner with their various programmes and we knew that the major make-over at the home had left their grounds needing some TLC.” Not only did the boys provide the labour, but their parents generously supplied the paint, brushes, bread and spekboom. As with any facility with a lot of through-traffic and the varied activities of staff, residents and visitors, Domino is always open to welcoming volunteers to help maintain and upgrade. For information about how their time and talents could be used, interested people may contact the NPO’s “Connector, Thembeka Gumede, at connect @ domino.org.za.
