Happy Anniversary to us!
It has been one year since the Daughters of Sheba Foundation was incorporated and we are ever so grateful for the blessing!
It is a big deal to us. Why? Well, it is a wish, a hope and a promise long in the making – this thing that we call The Daughters of Sheba Foundation.
Where It All Started
This is a wish come true on a personal level. It was a wish for a woman to be in my life that would truly guide me to the white picket fence life. Waited for many moons and that was not happening – the white picket fence life. The journey through the valley was made with the hope in my heart that there was a purpose through it all.
Eventually, I got to a point when that hope turned into a promise. I learned that anything that you wanted to experience and have learned you must teach. Making my “mess my message,” as Joyce Meyer extolled, I initiated the forming of a private group of women on Facebook about 13 years ago.
We were there for each other, through thick and thin. We shared our stories and on occasions our money to help a sister out of a tight spot. That group flourished, floundered and flopped eventually due to the pressure of time, personalities and other commitments.
But a core stayed together and in fairly constant contact.
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- Dr Janice Chanf
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- Clara Brown
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- Gloria Rose-Saunders
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- Beverley Sukie-Martin
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- Karlene Williams-Sears
Happy Anniversary: How We Got Here
It was to that core I turned with the thought to keep my promise – to be my sisters’ keeper and to help one at a time. This happened after the murder of my husband. I had learned years before that my pain is best healed by turning it into fuel for my passion.
Pouring everything that I had on hand, the Daughters of Sheba Foundation was legally and formally incorporated, with a mission, a vision and a purpose. We knew we were not going on a mass media campaign but quietly reach out to friends and family to help us.
Some Things We Have Done
As we say happy anniversary to ourselves, we look back at some of what we managed to accomplish.
Our work started with paying for the counselling services for a woman trying to leave an abusive relationship, then a micro-chicken farm. We would later give support to a budding author and creative.
As time passed, and the months went by we received numerous requests for support. However, we were selective about who we would support as we were clear about our purpose. As well, we understood that the resources available to us were not unlimited.
So, we helped mothers with school fees, we paid for data services to close to 25 children to access online learning, we paid for educational upgrading of a couple of women. Also, Christmas and Women’s day gift baskets and spa gift certificates were given out. We quietly bought groceries for a few.
A seamstress in rural Jamaica told us she would forever be indebted to us for giving her micro-business a push.
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- Alissa McLeod, Author
What Next?
Would we have loved to do more? Absolutely, but we understand the power of a widow’s mite.
We gave the little much that we could procure to those who we felt would use it to propel themselves forward. That is how we roll and will continue to roll.
Through our social media programming, we share inspirational and educational information and within our newly formed Facebook group, we group deeper with our members.
We are ever so grateful for the year that was and look hopefully to the ones ahead.
Happy anniversary to us!
Awesome congratulations well done you have been an awesome person.you have been through so much and still have time for others may the Lord continue to bless you as you continue to bless and be an inspiration to others ❤️ .I pray continuous blessings for you always .you have been an inspiration to me and my kids also .
None of this would have been possible or continued without the support of people like you, Christine! You make giving a joy and a pleasure. Namaste. Claudette