Donald Teuma-Castelletti
PORTAGE DU FORT
July 7, 2018
A fundraising luncheon was held at a makeshift café on Saturday, serving up sandwiches and strawberry sweets, simultaeneously supporting a faraway place.
Guests to The Café at 29 rue Mill enjoyed a lunch plus strawberry shortcake, all the while raising money for Omwabini, an orphanage in Western Kenya, with the Artistes de la Riviere in Portage du Fort.
Celebrating their fourth year of raising funds for the orphanage with the meal, organizers Carolyn and Albert Luimes saw around 100 people join them, supporting a cause close to their hearts.
It all started a few years ago with a message from Kenya, Albert explained, from a group looking for a mechanic to help them out. After some pondering, the retired auto mechanic teacher decided that they’d have to head over to help.
Arriving in December 2012, the couple set to work right away. Albert was tasked with fixing a truck that had been donated to the orphanage nearly a year earlier, and both helped with teaching and caring for the children.
They finished up there and continued to seek new opportunities in helping them out.
Fast forward to October 2015, and the couple were heading back to Omwabini to help with some more. Now that some of the children were growing older, there was an interest in developing careers – and who better to teach them some skills than a retired teacher?
They returned once again, seeing the orphanage’s numbers grow, but life slowly improving in the area.
Since returning from that trip, the Luimes have continued to organize fundraisers and help in whatever ways they can. They had seen, Albert said, how progress was coming along firsthand at the orphanage, that the work and money they put into Omwabini was helping. Therefore, they continue to organize more, which leads to their fourth Strawberry Shortcake Luncheon in Portage du Fort.
While Carolyn rushed about, serving all of the customers, Albert detailed that this event alone was always a great success, one year pulling in $1,000 for their efforts. The fundraising benefits from the price being a simple donation, allowing guests to choose how much they will donate to help out Omwabini.
“Every penny goes to Omwabini,” he shared.
Albert explained that the money raised has helped with a variety of projects, from acquiring new equipment to purchasing basic school supplies.
This year, the money would go on to help the orphanage rent land to grow maize. Albert said that the orphanage does own some land for growing crops, but also relies greatly on renting to meet their needs.
While they were happy to see the great numbers turn out that day, there were also some additional guests who travelled all the way from Kenya that the Luimes were proud to introduce.
Annah Khisa – the daughter-in-law of the orphanage’s founder – and her two children have been staying with the Luimes, experiencing a bit of life in the Pontiac.
While the children ran about, Khisa mingled with the guests to the lunch, learning from each other about places worlds apart.
One big improvement about the Pontiac, in comparison with Toronto, where the Luimes had picked her and the kids up from? Khisa was happy to get out of the bumper-to-bumper traffic and see everyone slow down.
