St Lucia held its first Hippo Festival on Saturday, 27 July. Our team in St Lucia were all very pleasantly surprised when they arrived to set up their stall and ‘Kids Zone’ and found lots of hustle and bustle as people were unloading their cars and setting up their stalls ready for when the gates to open to the public.
There was a variety of stalls and attractions including souvenirs, crafts, local businesses, horse rides, bouncy castles, our ‘Kids Zone’ and lots of different types of cuisine, a bar and lots of music and dancing throughout the day.
The Happy Africa Foundation and partners at African Impact in St Lucia were invited to be part of Hippo Fest by the festival’s committee. We jumped at the opportunity to participate, as it was a great opportunity to get our name out into the wider community and teach people what THAF does in the local area.
The Kids’ Zone consisted of lots of games and colouring where parents could leave their children with us for as long as they wanted for R20 per child. This seemed quite popular and we soon had a few children colouring and playing games with the volunteers. We had a joint stall for African Impact and The Happy Africa Foundation where we sold necklaces and bracelets made by the ladies at out support group in Khula, cupcakes made by our THAF Intern Stacey and the new THAF merchandise.
Alongside all of these activities we were approached by CANSA, who had a stall close to ours. They asked if we wanted to make a partnership for the day, and provided us with coloured hair spray to help with our fundraising. People were queuing up to have their hair sprayed with crazy colours all in the name of charity, and it was a great success.
For African Impact and The Happy Africa Foundation the first Hippo Festival concluded with more great successes. We raised R1803 for Inkanyezi Crèche from the partnership with CANSA, lucky dip, selling cupcakes and tips from waitressing at the Winter Wonderland dinner that evening. We also sold around R400 of THAF Merchandise, which was amazing and meant that overall we raised over R2200.
These achievements could not have been completed without the hard work and dedication that the volunteers and staff showed throughout the long day and night at Hippo Festival. It also couldn’t have been possible without the support of the St Lucia community and surrounding area. Thank you to everyone involved!