Dear Friends of the Butterfly Centre,
WE URGENTLY NEED YOUR HELP TO STAY OPEN
Our centre is doing so well, with so many wonderful caring volunteers giving the children so many opportunities. The children are all progressing beautifully under the care of Teacher Sindy and assistant Vuyo. They also benefit from Speech Therapy, Art, Music and Sports coaching, as well as focusing on their individualised education programmes.
They all love coming to school and are very enthusiastic about learning and playing with their friends.
DESPITE OUR BEST EFFORTS, WE ARE CURRENTLY FACING A CASH FLOW CRISIS.
Times are tough, and most parents are unable to pay full fees, and some have fallen into arrears.
Delays to our plans to build a school (read further below) mean that we need funding to remain in our existing premises for another 6 months, with rental costs and overheads. Specialised teaching materials are of huge benefit to the children, but these are costly and parents cannot afford to contribute.
We need to raise R100 000 to maintain our current operation as well as expand to the next phase by seeking another teacher and assistant.
WHAT NEXT?
Our intention is still to build a school/ skills development centre at Stanford Hills for these wonderful Butterfly children, which would take the pressure off fundraising long term as there would be no exorbitant rental costs involved. We were hoping to open for the beginning of the school year in 2019, but approval of applications to build has taken longer than we hoped. We have jumped through all the hoops, no objections have been received, and John McClachlan from Planactive assured us that we should have final stamped permission within the next two weeks.
We have some very exciting prospects with large scale funders interested in supporting this project and are meeting with builders on Wednesday 24th October for final quotes.
But in the meantime, with our current bank balance, we will not make it to that point. Please consider donating something to help this very vital part of our community, and these children.