There is a temptation, when you run a home like this, to feel that you are carrying it alone. The responsibility for so many young lives can make the work feel solitary. And then a week like this one comes along and reminds me, firmly, how wrong that feeling is.
This week a group of local volunteers arrived at the gate with cartons of food, bundles of clothes and bags of toiletries. They had organised it among themselves, quietly, and simply showed up ready to help. They did not come for a photograph or a thank you. They came because they had heard there were children nearby who needed support, and they decided to be the answer.
They spent the day with us, helping to sort donations, playing with the younger ones and sitting with the older children who do not often have visitors who want nothing from them. By the time they left, the storeroom was fuller and the house was lighter. The children talked about it for days.
I have come to believe that a home for vulnerable children cannot be held up by one pair of hands. It needs many. It needs the supporter abroad who sends what they can, the neighbour who drops off clothes, the volunteer who gives a Saturday, the courier who delivers a package ordered online by a stranger who will never visit.
To the community that showed up this week, and to everyone reading this who has ever shown up for these children in their own way, thank you. You are the proof I point to whenever the work feels heavy. This home is held up by many hands, and that is exactly why it stands.
