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By John Keery
WILMA LEPIN wasn’t prepared to just sit around
when she left her job as personnel manager at a large Kelowna department
store in 2007. “When I retired, I thought: ‘I have to do
something.’”
She had heard about the Stephen Lewis
Foundation’s programs to support grandmothers in Africa, who are
raising grandchildren whose parents have died of AIDS.
And her sister knew about a missionary couple in
Nigeria, Art and Dorothy Helwig, who are working with families affected by
AIDS.
“I emailed them, and they responded that the
grandmothers have taken the children and we want to help support
them.”
A Stephen Lewis Foundation group in Vancouver was
already making reusable cloth handbags and selling them to raise money. So
Lepin decided they could do the same thing in Kelowna.
 | | Wilma Lepin shows off handbags created to benefit African women. Photo: John Keery. |
She got a group of women together with co-worker
Darlene Garrie, under the name Gifts for Grandmas. Within six months, they
had raised enough money to build two houses on the Mambilla Plateau in
Nigeria. They now have funds set aside for two more houses, and 500 AIDS
testing kits.
The bags are made of durable fabric, of the type used
for upholstery. They come in a variety of colours, and are decorated with
beads and bells. They can be used as large handbags, or re-usable shopping
bags.
So far, Gifts for Grandmas has sold about 2,200 bags at
$40 a piece. “We really have done very well,” Lepin said.
Trudy Koehle said she jumped at the opportunity when
Garrie asked her, and she has now made 300 handbags herself. “I
couldn’t think of a reason to say no,” she said. “I have
really enjoyed it.”
The group of more than 30 women meet Thursdays at
Trinity Baptist on Springfield Road, to work on their project. They cut out
the cloth and plan and do some of the sewing. Garrie organizes people to
cut out the components and put them together in kits. Then Koehle and
others take them home to complete the sewing.
Not everyone comes to every meeting, but they always
have a good-sized group. Most are retired – and some, such as
Garrie, are snowbirds who spend the winter in warm places in the U.S. While
Trinity is the meeting place, most do not attend the church there.
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“It is a great ecumenical group,” said Faye
Highland, who belongs to First Lutheran in Kelowna.
She said the bags have a distinctive look, and make
“fantastic” gifts. Sales were particularly strong around
Christmas. “They are a great thing to start a conversation about the
project,” Highland said.
Koehle said the initiative is really a community group
that just happens to meet at a place of worship. “It is not just a
church thing,” she said. “anybody is welcome to help.”
Because they have done so well, they have been able to
take on two other projects, Lepin said.
They now sponsor a couple in Kelowna from Ethiopia, who
are in the process of bringing children of the husband’s brother to
Canada. The children are now being looked after in Ethiopia by an ailing
grandmother.
Also, they have begun supporting a project in Uganda
with Africa Community Technical Service.
The organization provides seed, tools and money to rent
land, so groups of widows can plant crops to grow food. It also provides
funds so their children can go to school.
The start-up funds are in the form of repayable loans.
When the money is paid back, it will be lent out to others to start similar
projects.
“It is a whole enterprise,” Lepin said. It
is a hand up, not a hand out. We are committed to change the lives of 40
people. This is going to to change that whole area.”
Next year, some of the group plan to go to Africa to
meet some of the people they have been helping.
March 2009
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