At St. John the Divine Orphans and Outreach, over forty staff members work tirelessly throughout the year to ensure that the children's needs are meet - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
Their work involves visiting the children in their homes and meeting with their guardians on a regular basis, to ensure that the children are being taken care of well. The staff cook lunch every day of the week, so that when the children arrive at the center they can have food to eat after a long day at school. For some children, this is their main meal of the day.
The St. John's staff help the children's with their homework each day, ensuring they are maintaining their studies. Art and craft activities, sport games, dancing groups and story times are also carefully planned throughout the course of the week. At the end of each month, food packages are made up and sent home with the children to help sustain their families food intake for the month.
The staff members, all working around 40 hours weeks do this on a meager salary of around $130 a month (minimum wage is $250 per month) provided by the Department of Social Development. (If you would like to donate to St. John's to help supplement staff salaries, please click here: Donate). Therefore, it was very important to St. John's to be able to celebrate Christmas by thanking and appreciating the staff for all of their hard work and sacrifices throughout the year, by throwing them a surprise Christmas Breakfast!
Mr. Marite and Patrica Marite (Program Manager), surprised all the the St. John staff members with a delicious breakfast: a yogurt parfait and muffin (baked by the Marite's daughter) was first served, followed by eggs, sausage and sauce.
The hall was beautifully decorated with white tablecloths and Christmas decorations. Gift bags with pens and notebooks were given to all the staff and an extra special gift, in the form of a bible for each staff member was donated. This was an answer to many prayers; they were received with great joy and celebration.
The staff were able to relax and socialize as they enjoyed their food, as well as sing songs and hear Patrica Marite speak of God's goodness and her appreciation of their hard work.
The video below is a short clip of the staff's joy upon receiving their bibles and appreciation breakfast!