Sponsorship brings fortuitous opportunities to children and families alike. Grace, a mother from our Baraka site in Kenya, applied the business skills that she learned from her Chalice family circle to her own farming business.
Grace’s life experiences weren’t great, she had to leave her home with her three children. Fortunately, the children’s grandmother offered Grace a small piece of land, where the local women’s church group helped her to build a one-room house. Still, Grace and her children were living in deplorable conditions, without a bed or any furniture; cooking and sleeping in the same room.
Thankfully Peter, one of her sons, was blessed with the gift of sponsorship. And the first thing the Baraka staff did, was to give the children a mattress through the Chalice gift catalogue.
Promptly, Grace joined a Chalice family circle, where she learned to make a budget, start savings, and participate in the group’s small savings and loans program.
First, she bought spinach seeds with the sponsorship funds, then with a microloan from her group, she rented a water pump to irrigate her crops. Waiting patiently, the spinach crops flourished, and she was able to sell 16 bags at roughly $20 CAD each. This meant more than 500% profit on her initial investment! After that, with the spinach profit, Grace was able to grow and produce 1,300 cabbages, and then she could cultivate some onions which doubled her earnings.
One thing was always in Grace’s heart: to build a house for her children. She could successfully do it with hard work and making her profit grow. “This profit enabled Grace to purchase her own petrol-powered water pump, purchased 32 iron sheets, and timbers and built a nice house,” says Stephen, Baraka site staff. “With her small-scale farming, Grace was able to buy all the building materials and foot the construction charges. She has been able to construct a spacious 3-roomed house, where now they are living comfortably.”
“Grace is short of words to thank Chalice the donors, and Baraka for her new house.”
Nowadays, her business is doing so well; with the profits, she improved her living standards for the whole family, and she hopes to educate their children for a better future.
Follow Chalice on Facebook and Instagram for daily updates from our sponsor sites, impact stories, and more!