Hats stretching as far as the eye can see. Be it colourful top hats and cowboy hats, hats with huge flowers, or hats depicting zebras and a whole range of animals. Not to mention the church hats and fascinators, and hats with playing cards stacked high. All these were present at the Sunflower House High Tea fundraiser held on Saturday.
The annual Mad Hatter High Tea took place on Saturday, 5 April. It was held in aid of the Sunflower Children’s Hospice. The ladies (and a few men) came out with the most creative headgear you could think of. This event was at the Hotel School of the Central University of Technology (CUT), Free State.
The event raises funds for equipment and also new curtains for the high-care baby room at the hospice.
Joan Marston, founder of the Sunflower Children’s Hospice, said the main goal for this year was to buy their own oxygen concentrator machine so there are no delays when a child needs continual oxygen.
She relayed a recent event where one baby with severe heart failure had to wait for almost two weeks to get the oxygen from the supplier.
“It was really stressful, and we do not want to put the children in danger, so we thought it best to get our own machine that can refill the cylinder on standby.”
Marston said they raised roughly R25 000 and will buy the oxygen machine soon.
“We have wonderful volunteers, but we really need more people to get involved,” she said.
She was especially thankful to Elsa Vermeulen who helped organise the event, and Werner Schmidt, who was the master of ceremonies (MC) and minstrel musician.
Marston said it was lovely to see all the volunteers and people being involved at the function, but also so many new faces.
“To us, it was a wonderful event to raise awareness of the plight of these special children as well as the almost 300 children in the community that also falls within our scope of work.”
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