The Care Bear Project is a Hilton based initiative founded by Rebecca Pinnell, a St Anne's old girl who is currently doing her second year B.Accounting at Stellenbosch. This concept took shape when Rebecca was submitting a proposal to Nedbank for a sustainable community project.
The project sells kits which enable knitters to craft bears, the knitters are paid for their work and the bears are then presented to children through crèches in the area.
Each kit costs R400.00 and makes six bears. Of the R400.00, R100.00 covers the cost of the wool, needles, sewing needle, stuffing, pattern, bag etc. and then R300.00 is paid to the knitter when she returns the bears. So it's a double-ended benefit; payment to the lady who knits the bears and then the distribution of the bears themselves. Their first target is 108 bears for a crèche in Lidgetton which is where the first knitters live, and they thought it would be good for their community to benefit from the first distribution.
The Care Bear Project is collecting the next batch of bears this week and should then have about 50 bears!
The Care Bear Project has already paid R2 500.00 to their first four knitters in the first three weeks of launching the project! Word is spreading among the community members and last week they handed out another 10 kits.
If your business, book club, home group or school is looking for a project to support contact The Care Bear Project to buy the kits that will keep these bears in production.