K4 Donates Footwear to Liberty Children’s Home
Young children living at Liberty Home will be benefitting from a generous donation from K-Four, a U.S. based organization with roots in Belize. The facility provides a safe home for thirty-two children in an environment that is conducive to learning. This morning, Liberty received an inventory of footwear that is being distributed to the children to keep their feet dry and comfortable. News Five’s Duane Moody reports.
Duane Moody, Reporting
For over a decade, Liberty Foundation through its Children’s Home in Ladyville has been providing for abandoned and abused children, as well as children afflicted with HIV. It’s described as a sanctuary for children in need—exposing them to a natural environment, love, nurturing, and a high standard of education. There are currently thirty-two resident youths at the Liberty Children’s Home in Ladyville.
Agatha Valentine, Director, Liberty Children’s Home
Agatha Valentine
“We have our Board of Directors that I report to; they do fundraising for us. We do get a subvention from the government of Belize. We have local partners like the Radisson Fort George and Marina that does a match programme for us. We have the international women’s club that gives us a monthly donation as well. Besides that we do have a volunteer programme where volunteers pay to come to us so that’s another way how we generate some revenue. We have a daycare and a preschool at the facility; it’s a nonprofit but it is our way of providing service to the Ladyville community.”
Today, Belizean-American Tamara Williams and two of her four children visited the children’s home bearing gifts—a container filled with an array of footwear: from sandals to tennis, boots and shoes. The Williams are from Lancaster, California in the United States and have created a nonprofit, K4—Kids Helping Kids, which was inspired by her eldest daughter Kayden that has spina bifida.
Tamara Williams
Tamara Williams, K4—Kids Helping Kids
“We are here to give out the shoes that we brought and also assess the needs of the children here so see what else we can offer them when we go back and who we can go to and get donations as well. K4 came about from my daughter Kayden and Kaymbria. Kayden has spina bifida and she wears a brace and because of that we have to look at what kind of tennis shoes she can wear—she can only wear tennis shoes and sometimes we can get away with wearing boots. But she looks into the community where we live and assess people’s shoes and say Mom can we get this one cause it will work. And she saw a need for children with these kind of shoes and that they needed shoes so she came home talked to her sister and came home to me and my husband and asked us about it. And we said okay, let’s see what we can do.”
Duane Moody
“Why Belize and why Liberty Children’s Home?”
Tamara Williams
“Well I am from Belize; their dad’s from Belize. They know everything about our culture and where we are from and we talk Creole to them and all that stuff; they eat the food and everything. So we always wanted to bring them back and so we decided this year to come back.”
Through partnership with the Belize Family Life Association, K4 was linked to the children’s home. Liberty’s Director Agatha Valentine says that the shoe drive is much appreciated and accepts the concept of it being an annual event.
Agatha Valentine
“When we receive this type of donation, it is really useful; it takes away from us as an institution and management having to find footwear for the kids and all the rest of it because of course as with most N.G.O.s funding is an issue. With such partnerships we can look at providing holistic care for them because we are responsible for every need that every resident has at the institution so this type of partnership does help us to meet our daily needs of our resident population.”
Tamara Williams
“The hope is that we can do it every year. We are based solely on donations; we don’t collect any money or anything. It is just whatever company we are with. Right now we are with Sprox—they sell through Amazon. With that company, once they give it to us; that’s what we have. As long as that continues, we are going to continue doing it. The goal this year was two hundred and we got two hundred shoes so we brought some of that here and we have the migrant community group in Lancaster California and then we have the Valley Partners in Health which works with children and low income families in the community that we are going to partner with as well when we go back.”
Duane Moody for News Five.
