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Thames volunteer Tanya Ruegg has spent the whole summer holidays
making and selling fresh fruit kebabs at fairs and festivals around
the Coromandel and Bay of Plenty, and she's raised over $5,000.
She never finishes a day with any kebabs left over, and she's only
hampered by lack of sponsorship, she says. "At the recent Keltic
Fair in Coromandell raised $800 in just three hours," she beams.
She says generally $200 of sponsorship will enable her to raise up
to $1,000, all of which goes to World Vision.
Tanya's enthusiasm, energy and passion are awesome. Right up to the
birth of her second baby, last year, she was squeezing in fundraising
events to help impoverished children in India, Africa and Bangladesh.
After the birth, she took a few months off, then was back into it again, this time raising money
for Cambodian child prostitutes who have been rescued and cared for
by World Vision in a safe house in Phnom Penh.
Her passion for the poor was fuelled by a trip to India in 2000.
She and her husband John hired a motorbike and set off to visit one
of the children they sponsor, nine-year-old Dhanuli.
"We had a wonderful time visiting World Vision's Pauri Garhwal
Area Development Programme in northern India, but I was so struck
by how little they had of what we would call basic necessities.As
soon as I got home, I started raising money for materials for Dhanuli's
school and her community," says Tanya, who hasn't stopped fundraising
since.
Meanwhile, as well as two little girls of her own to look after, and
another sponsored child in Niger,Tanya's kept busy making fruit kebabs
for hungry holiday makers, knowing that they will help people who
have no holiday from poverty.
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